


Defenders: The Art of Diversion

by MeluiethBox



Category: Daredevil (TV), Iron Fist (TV), Jessica Jones (TV), Luke Cage (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Gen, Including Those Weird Cliffhangers for Luke Cage and Iron Fist, Mind Control, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Past Abuse, Post-All Series Finales, Post-Spider-Man: Far From Home, The Things That Are In These Shows Are In This Too, You ever just wanna flex your knowledge of obscure marvel villains?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2020-08-23 05:41:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 77,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20237671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeluiethBox/pseuds/MeluiethBox
Summary: Three supervillain attacks in one night. All three claim coincidence. Whether they're lying or not, each Defender finds themselves chasing an elusive lead, with information being kept just out of reach, before violently crashing together once again. The only question is, who's pulling all the strings?





	1. Casting Call

Misty Knight was tired and angry and pissed off.

She stalked the halls of the New York City Police Department’s Harlem Precinct grumbling and swearing to herself. The city had actually managed to go a few months without any crazy superpowered bullshit, turns out it had been saving itself for the second she got back from vacation.

Of course it was.

She had a stack of documents held tight in her real hand. She had them memorized by now of course, but the paper trail was a neat source of intimidation. You got to slap it down on the table and show the poor saps just how screwed they actually were.

“Ridley,” Misty greeted her superior officer as she approached.

“Knight,” she greeted back. “You’ve got your work cut out for you today.”

“Don’t I know it.” She sighed. “So, where’s my studio today?”

“The three we bagged last night are in 3, 4, and 5. Got ‘em lined up in a row just for you.”

“Must be my birthday. Who should I start with?”

“Well there’s the one who won’t talk, the one who really won’t talk, and the one who won’t stop talking.”

Misty massaged her temple. “I’ll just hit ‘em one by one then. Who’s in 3?”

“That would be the one who really won’t talk. Has the,” she gestured to her face.

“Right. Well, wish me luck.”

“You’re gonna need it.”

Three attacks from three ‘enhanced’ individuals in a single night. All of them were claiming coincidence. It was Misty’s job to try and force a connection.

As Ridley moved to the room just beyond the one-way mirror, Misty shrugged herself loose. She needed to adopt a certain air for the interrogation, an air like she had nothing better to do the rest of the day than sit around and give you shit. The opposite of how she felt right now, so it took more than a little effort to shift her body language.

When she was ready, she barged into the interrogation room.

The man sitting at the table looked up as she entered. That is, he looked towards her, it was hard to tell if he was looking _at_ her. His skin was pale, unnaturally so, and his short, curly hair was paler. He wore a baggy brown coat and a red flannel shirt, but most of that was hard to pay attention to with the big, black circle plastered directly onto and covering his face.

Misty took her seat across from him and fixed him with nothing more than a look.

“You know we don’t allow suspects to cover their faces, right?”

The man, with his hands folded on the table in front of him, gave a small shrug. “You’re free to try and take it off.”

Misty looked at him skeptically. He didn’t make any moves.

Tentatively, she reached forward with her robotic arm. The fingers pressed against his cheek, but as she tried to grip whatever it was covering his face with her thumb, it… sank in. As she pushed it farther in, she noticed that same thumb poking its way _out_ of a similar circle of black along the side of his hand.

Misty quickly pulled the hand back, gave it a grimace and shake.

“Weird, right?” It was unnerving, trying to figure out where his voice was coming from when nothing on his face moved.

“I’ve seen weirder.”

“Have you now?”

“I was there for the 2012 attack. The attack that, according to this, you helped cause. In a way.”

“Ah.” The man nodded slightly. “We’re getting into the interrogation properly now, are we?”

“You’ve still got some fingers left for us to print, Johnathon Ohnn. Let me ask you, how does a S.H.I.E.L.D. scientist end up breaking and entering into a civilian’s home in Hell’s Kitchen?”

“Ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. After the accident I was discharged, in a sense. Officially, I’m supposed to be dead. If details about the Tesseract ever got out, which of course, they did, they at least wanted to look competent in how they handled it. On top of things. Bury all the leads to avoid a scandal of any prior issues getting it under control.”

“And you worked on that thing yourself.”

“I think it would be more apt to say the Tesseract worked on me.”

“You still haven’t answered my question John. What were you doing in Hell’s Kitchen?”

“Yes, yes, I was getting to that.” Ohnn rubbed his forehead with his thumb and index while absentmindedly twirling his opposite hand in a circle. A black spot appeared in the air as he did so. Ohnn looked up in surprise at it, then grabbed it, and it disappeared in his grasp. “Sorry about that. Where was I, yes, okay.

“Officially I’m supposed to be dead. S.H.I.E.L.D. set me up with a cozy little cabin out in the woods in Germany. I was supposed to spend the rest of my life there, keep my head down, avoid causing trouble, but I just got the urge to, you know, stretch my legs a little bit.”

“I hear mountain hiking does wonder for the lungs.”

“No, not like that.” He scratched at his head. “I feel like, these past couple years, I’ve been just sitting. Just sitting and maybe allowed to roll around in a wheelchair, but never standing. I want to stand, detective, I want to stand and walk and run and race with others to see just how fast I can go.”

Misty knew exactly what he was getting to, but she wasn’t planning to play along with his line of conversation. She shot him a scowl.

“The Tesseract opened up a whole new world before my very eyes. I want to explore it, I want to see what I can do with it.”

“How about you get to the point, Spot. Why the breaking and entering?”

“Oh, that. It’s simple really. I was trying to find Daredevil.”

That got a reaction out of Misty. An eyebrow shot up as she shot him the most incredulous look she could muster. “In a blind lawyer’s apartment?”

“It worked, didn’t it?”

* * *

Matt Murdock shot up in bed. There was somebody in his apartment.

He slipped out of bed as quietly as he could, stood next to the doorway of his room.

“Hey. Is someone there?” he called out in his best Matt Murdock voice. He knew that someone was there of course, it was hard to get an exact bead on whoever it was, but if it was just a crook looking to nab some stuff while he was sleeping, then just the owner waking up should be enough to scare them off. If they put up a fight instead, Matt shouldn’t have any problem knocking the guy out, he’d just have to do it quickly and quietly.

And if it wasn’t a crook, Matt might be in trouble.

The person stood, stock still, in the middle of the living room. They hadn’t budged an inch since arriving. Nerves started building in Matt’s chest.

“I’m serious,” Matt continued. “I’ll call the police.”

“Come on, Murdock,” came a voice. Masculine, average pitch, not particularly shaky. There was an odd timbre to his voice though. It took Matt a second to recognize it, but his lips weren’t moving when he spoke. “I know you’re on your feet by now. Just come out already.”

Matt took a careful step forward and moved through the door.

The man standing there was wearing a loose coat and denim jeans, gloves and a wide hat. Matt was having trouble getting a read on his face.

“Who are you?” Matt asked.

“Uh, eh,” the stranger made a non-committal sound. “I’m still trying to figure that out myself. Still John, probably. Sure. John.”

Matt swallowed. “Alright, John. What are you doing in my apartment?”

John took his hat off and placed it on the coffee table. Matt could hear the air currents passing through his curly hair, but the face was still off. Every one of Matt’s senses was telling him that John’s face was the kitchen.

“I’m trying to find someone. A mutual friend.” As John spoke, he casually a spun a hand through the air on his right. The space shifted, the air passed through it wrong. He leaned forward and did it again in front of him, and suddenly across the room standing next to John was Matt himself. Matt turned his head to hear better, the Matt across the room did the same.

“I’m – I’m afraid I don’t -”

John sighed. “Daredevil. I’m trying to find Daredevil. That’s the code, right, mutual friend, for when you’re talking about Daredevil?”

Matt’s eyebrows furrowed.

“Look, I think you’ve got this all wrong. I- I’ve only run into the guy every now and again. I don’t really know anything that you don’t.”

John softly chuckled. “Give me some credit here, Murdock.”

John reached up, Matt thought he was scratching his face, but fingernail never met skin. In the kitchen, someone grabbed a knife, but no one was there.

“Look,” Matt said, stepping forward. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, and if you don’t get out of my apartment right now-”

Things happened very fast and very confusingly. John pulled his hand back and was now holding one of Matt’s kitchen knives. He threw it towards the Matt next to him. And from near where the Matt next to him was, was a second John who threw a knife at Matt and there was a knife flying straight towards Matt.

Matt dove to the ground, hit the floorboards with a somersault and came back up in a crouch. John was tracing more circles in the air.

“You’re not very good at lying, are you?” he said.

Matt was trying to get a read on the room, but it was becoming harder as John moved about. Walls started taking bizarre sharp turns, briefly turning into other walls or windows or ceilings. The entire apartment was transformed into the kaleidoscope version of itself and just trying to imagine navigating it was giving him a headache.

That wasn’t even mentioning the 10 identical Johns and 15 Matt Murdocks scattered about the place.

Matt darted towards the closest John and threw out a wild haymaker. John jumped back, barely skirting along the edge of the hit, then took a few steps back and tossed a punch to his left. As he did this, another John stepped out from behind nothing and launched a simultaneous mirror punch right into Matt’s face.

Matt stumbled to the side, trying to clear his head. Shake out the rest of the sleep that was lingering in his brain, slowing his reactions.

Focus, Matt!

His hands went back up as he approached one of the Johns again, a little more thoughtfully this time. Let the weird home invader come to him instead.

John’s head turned, examining the funhouse apartment and the various different Matts. Eventually, however, he made his decision, darted to the side and swung a clothesline at one of the Matts’ head, as one of the Johns made the same swing at Matt.

Matt ducked, bobbing underneath the strike, then countered with an experimental jab. John stumbled back. Matt’s chairs were a little bit of everywhere at the same time, but he managed to find one close by, gave it a running start, and jumped off the armrest. He came down with a powerful punch to the side of John’s head.

Not willing to let John create distance again, Matt immediately followed up with an underhanded swing to John’s gut. Matt’s fist tore through the fabric of John’s shirt and kept flying as Matt’s fist shot from John’s face and slammed Matt in the chin.

With the fabric out of the way, Matt could sense his way into John’s chest, where he could make out Matt Murdock looking lost and confused.

Matt stepped forward with a hook, opting to stick to the head for now. John stepped back and drew a quick, small circle with his finger. As Matt’s fist was about to smash into his hand, it instead crashed into a brick wall.

Matt managed to pull his hand back without yelling, though he could already feel the blood trickling down his knuckles. A John flew in from the side and slammed into Matt from the side with an amateurish dropkick. Doesn’t take a martial artist to tell you that slamming into a person with all your weight is going to do some damage though, and Matt was sent sprawling through one of the legs on his coffee table, snapping it off.

With John recovering, Matt grabbed the leg, bolted to his feet and sent it flying with a flick of his wrist.

It was supposed to hit the far wall and bounce back in time to hit John in the head. Instead it kept flying and didn’t stop, zipping around through the apartment from every angle imaginable and several that weren’t. It flew from ground to ceiling and window to window without ever once hitting a single solid object.

Matt hit the deck, crawling underneath the coffee table and keeping his head low. John was finally showing a bit of panic, head darting from side to side as he tried to keep track of where the table leg was.

It flew in from the window without breaking it and darted straight towards John’s face and through it, but then kept going straight to the back of another John’s head.

It struck. John was knocked off his feet and hit the ground. In an instant, Matt’s apartment returned to normal. The leg ricocheted, flew to a wall and embedded into the plaster.

Matt was breathing heavily. Slowly he made his way from under the table. He went ahead and gave John’s body a once over to make sure he was out. He was.

Matt moved on over to the door. Grabbing his keys from the side table, he walked outside of the apartment, locked the door behind him, then broke the door open with a kick.

Next, he grabbed his phone and dialed for the police.

“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?” came the chipper voice on the other end.

“H- Hi, yeah, someone’s broken into my house, I don’t- I don’t really know what’s happened there was a lot of crashing and loud noises and the guy who did it is out cold now I think, but he’s- he’s still here.”

“Can you tell me your address, sir?”

“S- Sure. 370 Sutton Place. Apartment 1628.”

“We’ll have officers there as soon as possible, thank you sir.”

“Yeah, thank you.”

Matt could hear the police sirens arrive minutes later. Then there was the clattering of shoes as they ran up the stairs. Two officers, full gear. Finally, they burst into Matt’s apartment, announcing their presence with expected loudness.

One of the officers went over to inspect John, curiously poking at his face with their hand. The other moved towards Matt to get a statement.

“Thank God you’re here,” Matt said. “I was worried he might wake up before you could take him away.”

“Can you describe what happened here?”

“Um, I mean, I can try.”

The officer looked up, noticed Matt’s unfocused eyes, and scribbled something down on a notepad. “Alright, go ahead.”

“Uh, well, about ten minutes ago I thought I heard someone moving about the apartment, I live alone, I called out, hoping to scare him off, but then he started- he started talking to me. He told me that he was here because he wanted to meet Daredevil or something, I don’t know. I told him I didn’t know him, I don’t know what any of that was about, and then he- he attacked me. I thought I was done for, but then I heard the door break open and past that I have no idea. There was the sounds of fighting, I couldn’t really follow what happened, and then when everything got quiet, that’s when I called you.”

The other officer moved over to look at the table leg still embedded in the wall.

“Definitely looks like Daredevil was here,” he said.

“How’d you know the second guy was still here after everything went quiet?” the first officer asked.

“I tripped over him.” Pause. “No, seriously, after it went quiet, I was moving around the apartment to see if anyone was still here, and he was just lying on the ground where he is now, and I tripped over him.”

“Any idea how he got into the apartment?”

“No, none. Like I said, I only heard him moving around, I didn’t hear the door open or the windows or anything.”

“And is, uh, that from when he attacked you?” the officer said, pointing to Matt’s hand. “I’m pointing to your hand.”

“Oh. This. Well, yeah, I thought I was about to die anyways, I kind of panicked and took a swing. Didn’t do me much good.”

“Alright.” The officer stowed his notepad back away. “We’re going to need to ask you a few more questions at the station.”

“That’s perfectly understandable, I’d be happy to cooperate.” Matt gave his best innocent smile and tried to shove down how shaken that crazy funhouse experience had made him.

* * *

“Why Daredevil?” Misty asked.

“What’s that?”

“You wanted to race someone. Why Daredevil?”

“Who better in the city of New York to give me a challenge?”

“Don’t give me that shit, Doctor Strange lives three blocks down.”

“Oh. Well, I may be good, but I’m not sure if I’m Avengers good. That’s a big gamble to take isn’t it?”

“Pretty sure most of the Avengers don’t hang around this planet much anymore.”

“I don’t want to fight Doctor Strange, alright?”

Misty leaned in. “But you did want to fight Daredevil. Why?”

“He strikes a good balance. Big enough that I could become a legend for beating him, weak enough that he won’t splatter me in a single punch, small enough that I won’t break national news for picking a fight. There, my cowardice has been exposed for the world to see.”

“It’s just you and me here.”

“It’s exposed enough.”

Misty leaned back and huffed.

“I’ll give it to you straight, Ohnn. Breaking and entering onto private property and assault. Compared to your two friends that’s basically nothing.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about detective. I’ve spent the last decade alone in a forest. I don’t have much in the way of friends.”

“I could put you away for twenty years on this, plus whatever the lawyer is gonna sue out of you when this is all settled. Or, I can push it down to five, maybe lower, if you cooperate and help us out. Who’s sending out the freaks?”

“I assure you detective, I don’t know anything.”

“Absolutely nothing, huh?”

“I know no thing.”

“Alright. We’ll see what the other two have to say. Between you and me, I think the crackhead’s gonna spill first. Can never trust those types.”

“Are you asking me if I’m afraid that a drug abuser I’ve never met is going to talk about a person he doesn’t know exists with powers he can’t comprehend?”

Misty shrugged. “Are you?”

“Uh,” Ohnn gave it some thought. “No, not really.”

Misty stood up and left the room.

“Notice anything?” Ridley asked. “Cause all I’m getting is the guy’s a wackjob with a backstory.”

“Yeah, he’s full of shit.”

“I know that, Knight. But you’re going to need some evidence.”

“He specifically said Daredevil is the best person he could find in New York. He chose to go after him after choosing to come here.”

Ridley gave her a second. “Is that it?”

Misty sighed. “It’s not much but it’s a start. Enough to know there’s something actually going on here. Let me at least talk to the other two before we call this a loss.”

“Alright. You want the junkie next?”

“Yeah, let’s go ahead and get him out of the way.”

They moved into position again as Misty entered interrogation room #4. The second enhanced at least had a face.

His shiny black hair was stringy and tied back and came down to his shoulder blades. It looked like it hadn’t been washed in a couple of weeks.

The man also looked like he hadn’t been washed in a couple of weeks. His skin was yellowing and waxy, and he had a lot of wrinkles around his face for someone so young. He wore a ratty t-shirt promoting a band Misty had never heard of, a pair of black sweatpants, and white sneakers with slowly detaching soles.

He was also very – twitchy.

Really there was no two ways about it, he was tweeking like a motherfucker.

Misty sat down across from him, wrinkled her nose a bit at the smell, then began.

“Joss Shappe.”

“Speedfreak!” he corrected her. “The name’s Speedfreak, with two e’s.”

Misty cocked an eyebrow.

“Joss Shappe,” she repeated. “Multiple counts of drug use, some minor assault charges, a few cases of public indecency, tell me, how do we jump from there to attempted murder with a deadly weapon?”

Shappe leaned back, like it was the most casual thing in the world to say, “I’m trying to break into the superpowered mercenary business.”

“Do you actually have superpowers?”

“No, but I got them boots.”

“Yes, the boots. Where did you get those boots anyways?”

“Found ‘em.”

“You found them.”

“Ah.” He waved a dismissive hand. “Some engineering grad student made them for a project. Just took ‘em off his hands.”

“By killing him?”

Shappe gave an exaggerated gasp. “Little ol’ me? Kill someone? Why I would never.”

“You cut off a man’s arm and near fatally wounded a dozen people.”

“Didn’t kill anyone though.”

“You said 10 seconds ago that you were a mercenary.”

“I said I was _trying_ to be a mercenary. Besides, mercenaries don’t have to kill people. Assassins kill people, mercenaries do all kinds of things.”

Misty stood up and slammed her hands on the desk. “Mercenaries also have _bosses,_ Shappe. Someone’s paying you, and unless you want the harshest rehab experience of your life, you’re going to tell me who wants Luke Cage dead.”

Shappe gave a sharp, short laugh at the question. “Who doesn’t?”

* * *

Luke Cage sat at his throne, looking over Harlem’s Paradise. Tonight’s entertainment was a smooth R&B singer backed by a small three-piece, giving the whole building a relaxed atmosphere. A relaxing night at the tail end of an uninteresting week. Down below, the mass of people didn’t so much dance as ride the groove. Vibed out across the dance floor. Enjoyed the drinks and enjoyed the company.

And Luke Cage immediately noticed the odd one out when he walked in the door.

It wasn’t that he was a white guy. That put him a minority to be sure, but something like that, that’s not gonna make people stop and stare.

The bigger clue in would be the flagrant breaking of dress code. Either that or the smell.

His long, greasy black hair was pulled back in a long ponytail, poking out from under a silver bike helmet. Not a motorcycle helmet, a bike helmet. A bike helmet and a pair of tinted goggles. Driving the look home, he wore elbow and kneepads over a black t-shirt and ratty sweats, with a crackhead’s smile plastered across his face like a sticker.

The one thing that didn’t fit were his shoes. Great big silver boots, twice as big as what his actual shoe size should’ve been. They hummed and hissed even as the guy stood still in Paradise’s front entrance. All eyes were already on him, wondering who this guy was, marching in here looking like that, smelling like that, but if that wasn’t enough he made sure everyone knew he was here.

“The name’s Speedfreak, with two e’s.” Spedfreak? “I’m a super fucking mercenary, tell all your friends, and I’m here to kill Luke Cage, so where he at?”

There was a short pause. And then everyone started to laugh. The performers certainly weren’t going to stop for this guy. One of the bouncers, a big guy named Brady, put a hand on his shoulder. Luke almost moved away from his balcony. He probably didn’t need to intervene with this.

“I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” Brady said.

“That’s very brave of you, saying that to someone with knives for hands.”

There was a brief moment of confusion. Everyone looked down in that moment to see that the man’s hands were not knives, and were, in fact, regular human hands.

“Tha-”

Then there was a loud burst of air and a flash of movement. Speedfreak wasn’t near Brady anymore, and Brady was now clutching his left arm, his hand cut straight off at the wrist, blood gushing from the stump. Luke was at attention now. He followed a line of red cut through the sides of the crowd, no one injured quite as badly as Brady had been, but most had been cut somewhere nonetheless. In a conga line of brutality, each one hit fell to the ground one after the other.

Nobody was laughing now, screams rang out, the performers stopped playing and were now ducking offstage and away from the commotion. Luke finally found Speedfreak, pulling himself off of the far wall, peeling away dented and cratered plaster as he brushed himself off and shook his head clear. He still didn’t have knives for hands, but that didn’t make the two meat cleavers he was holding onto any less dangerous.

“Hey, nah, fuck it. Luke Cage can stay gone for all I care, I wanna do that again!”

That was definitely Luke’s cue to get involved. With a running start, he vaulted over the second floor railing and landed with a heavy impact in the middle of the dance floor. The crowd was swarming towards whatever exits they could find, leaving a big spot in the center that was growing larger by the moment.

Speedfreak gave a big sigh. “Fine. Guess I’ll do what I came here for.”

Luke didn’t have time to respond before he was met with a blast of air and a blur of movement and the sharp clang of metal. Speedfreak was inches in front of him now, pulling a dented knife from Luke’s throat. He looked it over, bemused. “Huh.” Luke also needed a second to catch up on what had just happened.

And once he was, he threw out a haymaker to Speedfreak’s head. Speedfreak ducked the swing and started slashing, his blades scraping across Luke Cage’s forearms, sending sparks flying into the air. He wasn’t doing much to actually hurt Luke, but this was an expensive suit, and one he didn’t want to see get ruined.

He reached out and gripped one of Speedfreak’s blades in his palm. With a squeeze, the metal shattered and crumbled out of his hand. Speedfreak just looked confused again. Luke went ahead and threw a cross to his head. He was sent flying back, landing some dozen feet away, but staying steady on his feet. His boots did well to keep him balanced. Made him very bottom heavy, hard to knock over.

Speedfreak looked down at his one warped knife and his one blunt handle, sputtered in disappointment, and tossed them both.

“Give up?” Luke asked.

“I give up trying to cut a guy made of titanium, yeah. Like what’s the fuckin’ point-”

Speedfreak was cut off by a blast of air. Before Luke could blink, he slammed into his chest, full speed, forcing the both of them to stagger back. Speedfreak gave Luke no time to recover though. Another blast of air, and he rammed into him again. And again. And again and again and again, rapid firing body tackles. Luke lost his balance entirely, tumbling off his feet and falling back. Speedfreak gave him no time though. One last burst of air and the both of them shot off. Speedfreak grabbed Luke under the arms and held him out front. A pillar collapsed over Luke’s head, then a wall, then brickwork, and Luke Cage was then tossed forward rolling across the ground into the street.

Cars honked at him to get out of the way. The streets outside Harlem’s Paradise were clogged. The rush to get away had hit a chokepoint and traffic was already bumper to bumper as is.

Speedfreak didn’t care. A blast of air and he rammed headlong into Luke Cage again. But Luke was prepared for it this time. As Speedfreak bounced off Luke’s chest, he reached forward and grabbed him by the skull. He lifted up, and the crackhead’s feet left the ground.

He looked panicked. He looked like he was about to try something.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you. I guarantee I’m a lot stronger than whatever those boots of yours can do. Or your neck for that matter.”

“M- Mister Cage,” he choked out. “Can I call you Luke? I have to say, I’m a really big fan, huge really. Can I try an experiment, while I’ve got your time?”

“Wh-”

Speedfreak reached up and jabbed two fingers into Luke’s eyes. Three Stooges style. Luke flinched back and, in frustration, slammed his forehead down, sending a hefty crack running through Speedfreak’s helmet. But that was certainly enough time not having his brain rattled for Speedfreak to pull a new knife from his belt, and Luke had a strong idea of where it would be aimed next.

With a flick of his wrist, Luke hurled the man away, towards valet parking where he crashed into the front windshield of a parked car. Glass sprayed and metal crumpled underneath him. For a second it looked like he would be content to just lay there till the cops showed up, but eventually Speedfreak shakily pushed himself to his feet, knife still in hand.

Things weren’t over yet, and now there were more bystanders to take care of, so Luke sighed and approached. Speedfreak was already shaking his head clear, so as soon as Luke was in swinging distance, he took his shot. A wild haymaker that should’ve floored him, but Speedfreak managed to duck at the last second and his fist instead added a new dent to the already wrecked car. Luke kept his back hand up, ready to intercept any attempts to stab at his face, and with his forehand he tossed out quick jabs, swipes attempting to just get Speedfreak off his feet and out of the fight.

Obviously Speedfreak was feeling confident though. After Luke whiffed a hook, he hurled the knife forward, and Luke watched as it whizzed past his face and buried itself into the brick wall across the street. There was a fresh bout of screams that erupted from those still trying to run away and doubled efforts to do so. Some of the ladies of the club were having trouble making distance in tight dresses and high heels. Something Speedfreak took notice of.

“Hey hey hey! Don’t get goin’ just yet! Party’s just getting started.”

Speedfreak leaned forward and Luke had just a split second to prepare. There was another burst of air and a flash of movement. With no other recourse, Luke shoved his arm straight out to the side, right in his path.

Ping.

The next thing Luke knew, Speedfreak was flipping wildly through the air, limbs flopping about in every direction. He flew for about 20 feet, shooting clear past the ladies he’d meant to chase, and when he landed he tumbled forward for another 15. He sure as hell didn’t get back up from that.

Sirens, and they were close by. A couple of police cruisers swerved around the corner and had to maneuver onto the sidewalks to get around the panicked gridlock. Two officers burst from each one, all immediately drawing their weapons, all pointed directly at-

“Luke Cage! Put your hands on your head!”

Luke blinked. “Come on.”

“There were reports of a violent enhanced individual in this area,” another one said.

Luke gestured towards Speedfreak, still writhing and groaning on the ground. “Yeah. You’re welcome.”

* * *

“You should’ve seen – the look on his face!” Shappe cackled.

Misty quietly wondered how he saw the look on his face, being face down and passed out on the pavement.

“And then-” Shappe continued. “And then they put me in the back of the cop car, but with the boots still on. Hands were cuffed behind my back, but I still let out a boost from the boots, slammed into the top of the car and probably dented the roof with my helmet, cops in front were so scared they swerved onto the sidewalk, nearly hit a fucking pedestrian!”

“Shappe!” Misty slammed her hand onto the table, if anything just to get him to stop.

“What? I was telling the fucking story, like you wanted.”

“What were you doing at Harlem’s Paradise?”

“I told you, I was there to kill Luke Cage.”

“Why?”

“Cause that’s what I’m getting paid to do.”

“You have no idea what your benefactor’s goal was in killing Cage?”

“I don’t like asking questions that are bound to get me killed. It’s called proper business etiquette.”

“And you’re willing to go to jail for life for this guy?”

“As long as I get paid, I’ll do whatever man.”

Misty hmphed. “Noted.” She began to gather her things back up. “Some other people will come through later and really rake you through the coals. I’m the nice cop, believe it or not. Not that it’ll matter, cause the best lawyer in New York couldn’t get you off these charges, but is there anything you’d like to get off your chest before I leave?”

Shappe thought about it for a second. “Am I gonna get any of my shit back?”

Misty smiled and shook her head. “No.”

“Aw come on. I got medication I gotta take, you know.”

“I know exactly what kind of medication you take, Shappe. Trust me, you’ll do just fine without it.”

Misty was partway out the door when she paused and turned back.

“Actually, one last question.”

“Sure.”

“…Speedfreak? With two e’s?”

Shappe paused for a moment, count with his fingers, then started talking again. “Four e’s. Four! It’s like a double, double e, like s-p-e-e-”

Misty left and the door shut behind her.

“That’s two down,” she said as Ridley approached.

“And not an inch closer. You didn’t want to ask about the…”

“Guy like that’s going to clam up if he thinks we actually know something. We play our cards close to our chest and he’ll keep rambling, and he’ll keep giving things away.”

“Such as?”

“He hasn’t gotten paid yet. And he’s still planning to. It sounds like the guy behind the guy’s plans didn’t end at Luke Cage being alive and his merc getting arrested. Could be a fall guy, they could all be fall guys, for something way bigger than three superpowered small time crooks.”

“How comforting. Would help if you could get me any idea on what that plan is.”

“I’m working on it, okay? Don’t suppose we could spring to get them all put in The Raft, just in case.”

“You think the Department of Justice is going to let a waste of space junkie use up tax dollars just cause he stole some superpowered shoes?”

“Worth a shot. I don’t like them sitting around in a state pen, something’s not right about all of this.”

“I’ll see what I can do. At the least, go for supermax, though with the severity of the crimes, it won’t be an easy sell. These aren’t exactly serial killers here.”

“Whatever works. I just need to keep whatever this is locked down until we can figure out what’s going on here.”

“Get it done, Knight. You still want to talk to the last guy?”

“Well, I’ve come this far. Might as well, right?”

Misty smiled. Ridley didn’t smile back.

“Yeah, alright.”

Room #5, in it was Misty’s third and final freak of the night. His blond hair was cropped short with a few scars across his face. He wore a worn out, brown, sleeveless jacket and a scuffed pair of jeans. His legs were cuffed together with a set of manacles. He didn’t have a pair of arms to attach the top half to. The skin just stopped at the shoulders. The aforementioned sleeveless jacket meant Misty could see the smooth nubs clear as day. Misty almost subconsciously reached over to touch her own fake arm.

“You know, we usually allow suspects with prosthetics to at least keep them until their hearing, so thanks for that.”

The man just nodded. “Officer.”

“Detective, actually.”

“Detective.”

“Very formal. Maybe that’s to be expected.” She took a seat. “Carl Burbank. Straight from high school to the military to the CIA. Half your docket is black marker, but I can fill in some gaps. Mission goes bad, critical injuries, mysterious experiments, hospice care gratis. I’m sure those arms of yours were great for operative work. Wonder whose idea it was to let you keep them.”

“That’s simple, Detective. It was mine. I stole them when I cut and ran.”

“And what’s the story been since then? Mercenary work? Guys like you always end up doing gun for hire stuff when the military checks stop.”

“Serial killing actually.”

Misty blinked. “Excuse me?”

“It’s all quite simple, Detective. You see, I’m sick, twisted, and deranged.” He said all this like he was describing a boring day job. “In the CIA I learned that I had a lust for killing. I seek to turn murder into an art form. My work is very… pretty.”

To say Misty was skeptical would probably be insulting. It was blatant falsehood to the point where Misty didn’t even have to guess what he was getting at. So long as he stuck to his ‘official story’ he wouldn’t have to spill any of the truth.

She sighed. “Look. You’re staring down numerous attempted assaults with a deadly weapon. You’re looking at life, maybe multiple, what have you got to lose at this point?”

“It is unfortunate, but it was only a matter of time before I was caught.”

“Cut the shit, Burbank. I know what game you’re playing at, and I know exactly who you were targeting.”

“Like a hurricane targets a single house.”

“Like a mercenary targets one of New York’s most notable enhanced while she’s out shopping.”

* * *

Colleen Wing was in a rush. There was an outdoor market farther uptown that closed in an hour, and she really wanted to do her grocery shopping there and not have to settle for Wal Mart veggies for tonight.

And to emphasize, it was a rush, Colleen darted through people meandering on the sidewalks, skid on the soles of her shoes to take every turn on a dime, and even vaulted over a few cars to get safely over crosswalks. Her sheathed blade bumped her back every other step. Given how she took this thing with her everywhere nowadays, it was a sensation she barely even noticed.

She came charging in through the gates, rounded the corner without losing any speed, and promptly sent a man to the ground.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry.” Immediately Colleen was offering a hand down to help the guy. Looking at him now though, it was surprising she’d manage to knock him down. Guy was probably a foot taller than her, and by the nature of his _open, sleeveless jacket_, she could see he was ripped to hell and back. Colleen wondered to herself what this guy was even doing here, didn’t most of these guys subsist on protein powder and motivational one-liners?

He accepted her hand and pulled himself back up. The hand was smooth. Hard. Cold. A prosthetic? Poor guy. Guess at least he doesn’t have to worry about working his arms anymore. The dexterity seemed advanced too, Colleen could easily mistake it for a real hand.

And then he was on his feet, and with a nod he was on his way. Colleen pushed the question of what he was doing here out of her mind and replaced it with the question of what all of these people were doing here. Wasn’t this place about to close?

She fished her phone out of her pocket. She still had 50 minutes.

Well, she supposed that’s what a rush will get you.

With time to spare, Colleen explored what the market had to offer a little more leisurely. She wandered from stall to stall. An older lady from upstate had some watermelons, probably a little old considering they were half off, but they still looked edible. That was definitely something that she wanted a part of, but it was also something to get on the way out.

One of the stalls was manned by a kid selling boba. Anything to get the millennial crowd in here, she supposed. And she did want some boba… Might as well, right?

Sure. Might as well. Colleen went up and got herself a cup, one of those with the shrink wrap top that you got to stab through with the big pokey straws.

As she was paying, she noticed a brown leather wallet on the table.

“Is that yours?”

The kid looked down, and gave a face like he just noticed it was there. “Oh, no, someone must’ve left it.”

Colleen picked up the wallet and spun, holding it up.

“Hey did anyone, uh-”

For a second she saw him, the big guy with the prosthetics, looking straight at her.

His gaze slid, like it had just been passing over her, before settling on a flower cart. He rubbed his chin in quiet thought. Colleen stared, curious.

Eventually she took her eyes back off of him and went back to the boba stand.

“Something the matter, weird sword lady?” the kid asked.

“No. Nothing. Here, it’s better you hold onto this, in case they come back for it. Just, if they don’t, return it to the cops or something for me, alright?”

He shrugged. “Sure. Whatever.”

Colleen paid for her tea and moved on while she drank. She was scanning the market now. Prosthetics guy had all but disappeared. That sure as hell wasn’t suspicious.

Colleen moved further into the market, past the touristy pleasantries that draw people in and towards the real meat and potatoes, so to speak. No meat vendors, most of that went to actual supermarkets, but there were certainly potatoes. The tables started to grow in length, devoted almost entirely now to buckets with the meager remnants of what had once been great stacks of produce. That’s what you get for saving your shopping till the end of the day Colleen, the last slim pickings. She couldn’t really complain.

She got a serve-yourself bag and started filling it with the best of what was left for her. She felt twitchy though. That prosthetics guy had her feeling on edge, she kept looking over her shoulder expecting to catch him watching her again.

It might’ve been nothing? It was probably nothing. Guy was just looking at her and then wandered off, that was all it was, yeah? Maybe it was a little creepy, but there was no need to be weird about it.

She glanced up. There was one of those domed security mirrors hanging from the pop-up canopy. It wasn’t pointed in the most convenient position for her, it was to help the guys behind the counter after all. But she was able to see herself along the edge, and her blood turned to ice when she saw him standing behind her.

She paused for a split second, but quickly went back to trying to look busy. Trying to look busy was so much harder than actually being busy.

Her eyes didn’t leave that mirror, they were glued on the stretched out image of that guy in the brown sleeveless jacket.

From the distance, she watched as his left hand went to his right elbow and he pressed into it. His arm then, like, flipped. Or, no, it spun, it spun around a pivot in his elbow, with a chunk of space coming out of his bicep to make both ends equally as long. It clicked back into place, but facing backwards now. His hand was now pressed up against the top of his arm, making it whole and seamless once again, and where his hand used to be was now something else. It looked like, at the end of his arm was a flesh colored pistol, pointed straight at the back of Colleen’s head.

That was it. That was as far as Colleen was willing to sit and watch. She dropped her bag of produce. Dropped her cup of boba. Grabbed her blade. Drew it from its sheath. Spun around.

**BANG**

And she pushed the chi from her heart and into the fist that gripped the blade. She saw everything move in slow motion, saw the bullet hang in the air for just a moment, saw the white glow light up her katana.

The guy looked at her, confounded. She was breathing heavily, unable to look away from where the bullet had just been.

There were two light, metallic clinks behind her.

The scene sat in utter silence. That gunshot had rung out across the entire market, and everyone had stopped talking, stopped milling about, stopped everything to make sure that they heard what they thought they heard.

It was probably best if Colleen just confirmed their suspicions.

“Run!”

Panic and screams of fear and stampeding footsteps flooded in from every direction. And they faded into the distance. That was good. Colleen could handle this, at least until the police arrived, but it would be way easier without other people to worry about.

That was definitely a pistol at the end of the man’s arm. Smoke drifted coolly from the dark barrel. It looked like a revolver, but the cylinder was a solid, round hunk of flesh-colored plastic. It didn’t look like it could spin, but Colleen definitely heard some machinery move in there.

She ducked to the side and there was another BANG as a bullet kicked up some dirt. If those prosthetics were going to be the problem, then the solution was obviously to get rid of them. She darted in, swung with her blade,

and saw the metal barely dig a nick into the plastic.

He pushed against her, moving the gun hand up to meet her face. She pushed back, bracing the katana with her off hand. The gun’s barrel came to a stop just past her cheek. She jerked her head to the side as another bullet whizzed past her ear. There was ringing, ringing and not much else coming from that side now, and it hurt like a bitch too.

With a grunt of exertion that she only half heard herself give, Colleen shoved back against the guy’s gun arm, pushing it to the ground, moved into the motion and pivoted on her foot to swing around and launch a reverse roundhouse into the guy’s face. It impacted, his cheek crunching under the heel of her shoe, and he was sent staggering back.

Colleen moved in again, feeling pretty good about being trained in as many weapons as she was, and used her katana like a bo staff. She shoved it into the crook of his gun arm, twisting it, wrapping around it, and locking it behind his back. He took a step back and stomped, attempting to catch some of her toes and throw her off balance. She moved her foot out of the way easily, and instead jammed it into the back of his knee.

She noticed then his opposite arm moving around his front and pressing a small button in his elbow. The arm flipped and spun again, moving back at an impossible angle to slot easily back into his bicep. The five-digit hand that now sat at the end of his arm clicked into place well outside of Colleen’s lock, and easily batted her sword aside.

He spun with a hook. Colleen’s brain rattled inside her skull. He hit way harder than she was expecting.

Hands gripped at the front of her shirt, and all at once her body was jerked off the ground and hurled backwards. She rolled to a stop in the grass and just managed to finally get her thoughts in order and look back up.

The guy reached over to his left arm and pushed a similar button on the elbow. Just like before, the arm spun around a pivot in the elbow, the hand disappearing into the upper arm and a weapon barrel replacing it at the end. This one though, that wasn’t no pistol.

Colleen grabbed her sword, pushed herself off the ground, and booked it. Behind her the rapid-fire brakabrakabraka of a machine gun rang out as the guy let loose with a stream of lead chasing right behind her. A few errant bullets left the line of fire and shot towards her, and she was forced to swat those out of the air as soon as she could.

There wasn’t much space for Colleen to maneuver or kite here. The market was designed as a series of paths, not so much wide open fields to run through. A turn taken too sharply would probably get Colleen ventilated, and she was very quickly running out of space, but the crowdedness did have some advantages to it.

With a flick of her blade she sent a small plastic chair flying at him. He redirected his aim, the flying bullets tearing the chair to splinters in a second which wasn’t doing wonders for Colleen’s confidence. But she didn’t stop, darting up and jumping off a table. Flipping in the air over the stream, then hitting the grass with a roll, she bridged the gap between them almost instantly.

Colleen locked her blade into the crook of the offending arm once again, twisted and pulled it up, putting the hand in a hold above his head. She slammed his face with an open palm, swatted his free hand away as it tried to snake back over, and caught a headbutt to the nose for her troubles. The guy swiped for her head again, but she was ready now and ducked the swing.

He was starting to run out of options. Colleen was very easily avoiding his counterattacks while keeping his arm locked up. She was starting to feel better about how this was going. But something about that ‘cornered animal’ look in his eyes was throwing her off.

He took a couple quick breaths, and then his face screwed up in exertion. Colleen put both hands against her katana to try and keep his arm in place.

But even when Colleen refused to buckle, her blade eventually did. The metal creaked and bent and folded as the guy slowly freed his machine gun arm. Colleen had a single moment of her gut falling from her chest, before the blunt end of the gun struck her across the face, sending her back and fully freeing the guy.

Colleen staggered back. Her weapon now looked like a metal party streamer. She felt the skin of her forehead crack open from that hit. Things suddenly weren’t looking so good after all.

The guy pressed the barrel of the machine gun into the button on his other arm, and it flipped to reveal the pistol as well. Both gun arms were lifted directly up to match her line of sight.

As much as she was, quite literally, staring down the barrel here, Colleen forced herself to not panic. Panicking now would be the absolute worst move and she knew that, but saying was easier than believing.

A weird smile creeped across the guy’s lips. A smile so unnerving and out of place that for a brief moment it took Colleen out of the emotion of the situation, pulled her into an out of body experience that quelled the panic rising in her chest and focused her attention fully on what she had to do.

And her fist became iron.

Glowing with chi, the inner strength flowed from her chest down to her hand and into her blade. The metal pushed itself straight again. The steel gave sharp clangs as the sheer force rushing from Colleen’s fist pushed it back to shape.

The guy’s smile dipped for a second as he regarded the scene curiously. And then he decided, f it, and opened fire with both hands.

The bullets rushed to Colleen, screaming for her blood. In that split second, she raised the blade over her head and swung it down.

Blinding white energy shot from the tip of the blade like a torrential wave. It rushed forward, slicing through the ground and melting the bullets to slag. The guy raised his hands, crossed them over his head in an instinctual defense. The wave hit and instantly he was shoved off his feet and sent flying back, cratering into the stand behind him.

Colleen let the energy fade from her fist and sheathed the katana back across her back.

He looked pretty well passed out from that. His head lolled and what she could see of his eyes were rolled back in his head.

His prosthetic arms were a mangled mess. The flesh-toned plastic torn and melted open, revealing sparking wiring and shredded machinery inside. Sirens were yelling out in the distance, getting closer.

Colleen sighed. She was never gonna get that watermelon on sale now.

At the very least, she picked up her bag of bruised produce and slapped the money down for it on what was left of the counter.

* * *

“Because the woman made a commotion, and distracted me for so long, every other civilian in the area got away. I thought I could make something pleasing to the eye from her, but the power she had in her hands… well let’s say it was a lot more impressive than what I had in mine.”

“Your reverence is duly noted. Now how about you cut the bullshit and tell me who hired you.”

His response was immediate and firm. “I don’t have an employer, detective.”

Misty raised an eyebrow at him and said nothing.

“At most I have a… a muse.”

“A muse?”

“Yes, a… process that guides my hand. Inspiration you could call it.”

“Well what was your muse telling you then? What about the market was attractive, tell me that.”

“It felt like an opportunity for social commentary.”

Misty almost laughed. “How do you figure?”

“All these young people today, they want to ‘save the world’ but they don’t want to sacrifice for it. The only people who buy local are those that can afford it. And those who can afford it will ignore the inhumane practices when they don’t come from big business because it boosts their public image.”

“So what, you’re a vegetarian serial killer?”

He shrugged as best he could. “It’s just an observation.”

“What was the plan if the Iron Fist hadn’t been there?”

Burbank gave it some thought. His eyes moving with the question as it mulled in his brain.

“I’m not sure,” he eventually said. “I’m usually very spontaneous about these things.”

“No thoughts? No ideas going in?”

“A blank canvas is better than a color by the numbers detective.”

“Most artists make a draft before moving on to the final product.”

“Are you insinuating something?”

Misty smiled. “It’s nothing. That’s all the questions for now. Another detective will come in to grill you more in a bit. You might want to consider who you plan on remaining loyal to, especially when a life sentence is involved.”

“Ah, yes, about my sentence, I did have another idea.”

Misty, who had been getting ready to stand from the table and leave, paused for a second and gave him a look.

“I could help you out.”

“With what?” Misty asked as she settled back into her seat.

“I have a package that I’m expecting.”

“…A package.”

“Yes ma’am, a package. Fresh shipment of spare prosthetics. If I’m not there to pick them up, who knows what’ll happen to them.”

Misty huffed. “You cooperate or you get life, Burbank. That’s the deal. You’re not gonna get very far threatening the NYPD.”

“I understand and that was not my intention.”

“That’s all. Be sure to give the guy who comes in next a little less of the runaround for me, ‘kay?” Misty got up, for real this time, and left the room.

“Is that the best you can get me, Knight?”

Misty had a huff for Ridley too.

“Relax, would you? This is a full operation they’re pulling here, I’d be surprised if they crack under this kind of opening pressure. Just keep ‘em all here for the day, have a couple people cycle interrogations, give me a couple more cracks at ‘em, and we’ll start making some real progress.”

“Some idea of what to do _now_ would be appreciated. What he just said isn’t something we can just wait and see what happens with.”

“I’m working on it.”

“Work faster.”

“Alright. Obviously three super attacks in one night isn’t a coincidence. Ohnn came to NYC for a reason and picked a fight second. Burbank didn’t have much of a plan for if Wing hadn’t been there so it’s almost certain he was targeting her specifically. Shappe admits to being on a payroll, but also hasn’t been payed yet. We apply these things out to the three of them and we can start figuring out motivation. I don’t think the intention was to kill any of the victims. With a single benefactor they could’ve ganged up on them one at a time and used the night to take all three of them out. Instead they split up, each had a scrap, and all three got caught.”

“You think losing was part of the plan?”

“If they ain’t got payed yet, the job ain’t done yet.”

“But what would be the point of that, Knight?”

Misty chewed her lip. “Not sure. Maybe, making an announcement, sending a message? They don’t want to pick a fight with the Avengers, that’s for sure. Daredevil and Wing and Cage have their connections, but the easiest association your average joe is gonna jump to is the Midland Circle incident. When the ‘Defenders’ beat up an evil clan of ninjas and-… shit.”

Ridley stared as Misty suddenly went quiet.

She just pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed.

“Has anyone been in contact with Jessica Jones since last night?”

* * *

A sharp banging at the door dragged Jessica Jones from the pleasant jaws of unconsciousness and into the excruciating existence of a bad hangover.

“Answer it,” she half-mumbled half-yelled.

…

Shit. Gillian had the day off, didn’t she. Fine. Whatever. Time for work.

Jessica pushed herself out of bed and was decent enough to pull some pants on before trudging into the office.

The sharp knock rang out again. Jessica winced. Too loud. Too early.

“Coming,” she sharply yelled back.

To the door. More knocks. Come on. Jessica was already getting ready to send whoever this was packing. If not with some strong words then with a toss that’ll get them to the elevator.

She undid the half dozen locks left over from the Sallinger case and nearly tore the door open as the knocking started for a fourth time in the last 30 seconds.

“What.”

Standing on the other side of her door, one fist still raised limply in the air, was a teenage girl. Looked about 16. Slightly tan. Curly black hair just past the shoulders. Wardrobe straight out of the 80s, what the hell kid. Purple shirt hanging loosely off one shoulder with a black tank top underneath. Tight pink pants with a white belt. Big hoop earrings. It was almost a surprise she wasn’t blowing an obnoxious bubblegum bubble.

“Jessica Jones?”

She groaned internally. “The one and only.”

“I need your help.”

“Sorry kid, I only do business with grown-ups.”

Jess went to close the door. The kid shoved her foot in between it and the frame.

“Please, just a moment?”

“You know most people who come looking for me are scared that I’d cut their foot off if they did something like that.”

“It’s my dad.”

“He’s cheating on your mom.” That was probably harsh. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s not that.”

“I know it’s tough, okay. Parents suck. But if you wanna know where your dad ran off to, statistically he’s out cheating. And I’d rather save the 2 days of stalking it’s gonna take to get you the photographic evidence.”

“That’s not it, I’m telling you-”

“Look, even if you think he’s ‘not the type’ or whatever, trust me, he’s exactly the type, you just don’t want him to be.”

“No, I-”

“Welcome to life, kid. People are always going to disappoint you. Especially the people you trust the most.”

“Would you just let me in so I can explain!?”

The thought crossed Jessica’s mind for just a moment, and without a second’s hesitation she acted on it. All desire to keep this kid out of her office and send her running home was sapped from her in an instant. She stepped back and opened the door wide to let the kid in. And the kid in turn entered without a second thought.

“Sorry I had to do that, but I really need to talk to you, and-”

Whatever she was going to say next was cut off as Jessica took her by the throat, lifted her off the ground with one hand, and slammed her against the wall hard enough to rattle her brain. Keep her off balance. Don’t let her collect her thoughts.

“You’re either going to explain who the hell you are,” she growled. “Or you’re going to kill me now, cause the second I feel that tingle in my brain again I’m tossing you out the goddamn window.”

The kid was finding it hard to speak. Jessica was making sure to keep it that way. She clawed at Jessica’s hand, fruitlessly attempting to pry apart her iron fingers.

“I – I told you… it’s about my dad.”

Realization began to dawn on Jessica. Horrific, terrible, painful realization.

“My name is-” cough “-my name is Kara… Kara Kilgrave.”


	2. Set Dressing

Jessica Jones sat at her desk. Shot glass in her hand. It was empty, so Jess filled it back up again. This would be her third drink since the girl had entered her office.

Kara sat across from her, looking at her expectantly. Jessica couldn’t bring herself to look at anything. Not yet. Few more drinks.

Kilgrave had a kid. Kilgrave had kids. Thinking about it now, it was somehow the most obvious, foregone conclusion and also a world-shattering revelation at the same goddamn time. Kilgrave had kids. Kilgrave had kids and the kids had his powers.

It took everything in Jessica not to puke just thinking about it. Another drink. Maybe a few more drinks.

Jess went ahead and took a deep swig from the bottle.

“How… old are you.” Maybe that was a weird place to start.

“Seventeen.”

“Ugh. Jesus.”

“But- But I was around during the blip. So things are a little weird on that front.”

Right. Another drink. That shit. Goddamn superhero bullshit.

Jessica had missed out on all that. She was still trying to figure out if that was a good thing or not. One minute she’s alone, drinking in her office cause goddamn aliens are invading New York again, next thing she knows, she’s falling on her ass cause all the furniture in her office was gone and there was a white trash couple rutting like animals in her bed.

She tossed the both of them out, checked her phone and saw that it read it as being 5 years later than it should’ve, checked her cabinet and found _no_ booze, and that was that on her end. Outside things may have been falling to shit, Jess honestly might’ve been squatting illegally in that apartment for a while, but it’s not like anyone was really in a position to care. Police were busy with much more important shit 24/7, and anyone who could’ve done anything about it was just trying to retain order.

It took the first month for Washington to decide that the current elected officials would stay in power and that those who’d blipped out had effectively ‘completed their term’. It wasn’t until three months after that when those officials even started considering who now owned what. Eventually it was decided that if you could prove that you owned it before the blip then you could claim ownership of it now and the state of New York would repay the lost value of whatever the hell it was, so Jessica got her apartment back, and nothing else. She had no idea where her old desk and couch were now, even if she did, it’s not like she could prove they were hers. Anyone affected by the blip was also entitled to a whopping $150 reparation, so Jess also got a new chair.

Two weeks after that law passed, the same guy who was crushing it in her apartment showed up asking her to help track down his wife who’d gotten blipped. She used the money from that case to buy a new desk.

And now a year and a half later everyone, or at least Jessica Jones, had put that weirdness behind them and were ready to move on with their lives.

Another drink. The long and short of it was that she was gone for a bit, and now she was back. That was all there was to it.

“So what do you want from me.”

“My dad… Kilgrave is alive.”

Jessica just looked at her for a solid second.

She shook her head. “He’s really not, kid-”

“Kara. My name is Kara. I’m not a kid.”

“…Kara. Trust me, that asshole is in the ground, even if he won’t go away. I…”

“I know what you did. Or, I know what you think you did.”

“What’s that supposed to mean.”

“Well my- our powers work by directly affecting how the brain perceives things. We say something and then the brain takes it as fact. So I could say something like: There’s a really hot guy sitting on the couch right there.”

Jessica leaned over and looked at her couch. Tom Hardy waved back.

She blinked and the couch was empty again. Another drink.

“His control fades after time though. If he told me to see something else, I’d remember it.”

“I don’t know. It’s something to do with how memories are made. If he or I or whoever said to remember a thing a certain way, the brain does so, and the memory is just stored there like that. Forever.”

Jessica chugged from the bottle. As if everything surrounding Kilgrave wasn’t fucked up enough.

“How do you know so much about brains,” she asked.

Kara shrugged. “Honestly I’m just guessing from what I’ve been able to do.”

Jess leaned forward. “How often are you going around controlling people.”

“Look, it’s not- I’m just telling you what I know okay, people are in danger here!”

“No.”

“What?”

“I’m not doing it.”

“But- I just said-”

“Look. _Kara._ I don’t trust you, and I want nothing to do with dear old pops ever fucking again. So no, I’m not doing it.”

“You don’t trust me? What do you mean you don’t trust me?”

“Call it a personal bias for people with your skillset.”

“He’s already here, Jones. He’s in New York and he’s planning something big. You’re the only one who can help me now, you already beat him once.”

“Yeah, not helping your case.”

“Wha-”

Jessica leaned in real close. “You come into my office, you tell me you’re the kid of the guy who, in my complete shitshow of an existence, is probably the worst thing that has ever happened to me, that he’s somehow alive despite the fact that I clearly remembering snapping his neck, and that I need to do something about it. Here’s my initial thoughts: Kilgrave doesn’t make big plans, if he has an ounce of self-preservation left in his bones, he should know to stay the fuck away from me, and he’s not still alive. I made damn sure of that.”

Kara didn’t have anything to say to that. If she did it wasn’t backed by the guts to say it.

“If you actually believe that he’s still out there, my advice to you is to run. Pack everything up, take whatever family you have, start hopping continents, go to the ends of the earth to get away from him. Cause if you go to him head to head the only thing you’ll get is hurt.”

Kara muttered something.

“What. What else is there to say.”

“I said… he’s already found me once.”

That made Jessica freeze up. She gripped the back of her chair, got ready to swing it at the kid if she needed to.

“Found you where.”

“Back home.”

“And where’s that.”

“Toronto.”

“You saw him.”

“He… left me a message.”

“What message, what did he tell you.”

“… I’ll tell you if you take my case.”

All the tension and anger bubbling in Jessica’s chest was released in a single, angry grunt.

“Get the fuck out of my office.”

“But-”

“Out!”

Kara jumped.

She looked like she had more she wanted to say, but without meeting Jessica’s eyes she swallowed them back down, stood up, and turned for the door.

Jessica watched her like a fucking hawk.

As she trudged across the room, placed her hand to the door, she turned back for a moment.

“Don’t,” Jessica warned her.

Kara chewed her glossy lip.

“Thank you for your time.” With that she opened the door and left.

Jessica gave it a moment.

Listened intently for the clacking of shoes down the hallway.

The ding of the elevator.

The rumble of it slowly going down.

And she collapsed forward onto her desk, letting out the breath she didn’t even realize she’d been holding.

A lot of shit bubbled up from the pit of Jessica’s stomach. A lot of shit she didn’t want to deal with. A lot of shit that should’ve been shoved down and locked away a long time ago. Layers of assurances built up through the years started tearing away from the uncertainty of their promises. At least she could start putting Kilgrave behind her. At least Kilgrave was dead, where he couldn’t hurt anyone again. At least she could never be controlled again. At least she could be sure her thoughts were her own.

Jessica only just now realized that she was panicking. She was panicking. This was a panic attack. That wasn’t good.

She tried to remember what she’d been told in anger management, or any of what the doctor had said for the two weeks Trish had made her go to therapy. She tried to breath. Tried to occupy her thoughts with something else. Her brain was buzzing with thoughts, information, words, feelings, problems, solutions.

One voice cut clear through the fog.

_‘Jessica…’_

Jessica looked up from her desk and saw purple.

_‘Over here Jessica…’_

The last bit of logic in her brain told her that it was bullshit. This was a traumatic response, she had been told, it had happened before. Jessica knew it wasn’t real.

And the second that train of thought faltered, Jessica was on her feet, scanning the apartment.

And there, sitting with legs crossed on the couch, was Kilgrave. Perfectly kept hair, light stubble, and purple three piece suit. Just like Jess remembered him.

Jessica’s entire essence screamed. But she didn’t. She breathed. She brought herself back under her own control. If out of nothing but spite. She sank back into her seat and glared at him.

“You’re not real,” she said.

Kilgrave looked himself over, checking to see if she was right. “I feel pretty real to me.”

“You’re dead.”

“Ah, well,” he brushed her off. “Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

“What do you want.”

“I want to help you Jessica, always have. I want to help you be a better person, iron out all that nastiness in your, eh… well, everything really. I want to help you look your best, think your best, be your best.”

“You want a Stepford wife who will do whatever you want without talking back.”

“Why does-” He gripped angrily at the air. “That’s not what I want, Jessica. For you or for me.”

He stood up and walked over to Jessica’s desk. Leaned on it with one hand.

“That’s not even why I’m here right now honestly. Right now, I just want to help you see the truth.” He turned, nodded towards the door. “See you met the brat.”

“She’s wrong. You’re not alive. You can’t-…”

“I can’t what, Jessica? I can’t be alive? Why not? You were dead for five bleeding years and look at you now. On your feet and kicking, better than ever.”

“That’s- That’s different.”

“We’re both different Jessica. That’s what makes us beautiful. You and I, we’re allowed to defy pedestrian things like death.”

“You’re lying.”

“Am I?”

“You’re dead.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“You’re not here, Kilgrave.”

“Care to put your money where your mouth is?”

Kilgrave reached over. A soft, open hand, reaching for her face.

Jessica leaped to her feet and hurled her chair at him.

Her vision tunneled so hard it was hard to tell at first that she was looking at nothing. An empty apartment with no one in it but herself. As it widened back out, she could also see the cheap office chair now embedded into the plaster of the wall between her and the bathroom.

She just stood there for a while, arm still extended, panting.

Shit.

Jessica Jones grabbed the bottle of brandy from her desk, chugged the rest of it down, then wiped her mouth and went for the door.

* * *

Misty Knight stared into space, hand on her chin. The events from last night spread out before her, to her left was Burbank attacking the outdoor market, to her right was Ohnn in the lawyer’s apartment, dead ahead was Shappe busting into Harlem’s Paradise. The timeline stretched out before her, the events playing and replaying in her mind, perfectly on their cues. Standing to the far back was a figure, shrouded in shadows, giving the order for each attack. Misty tried to piece together anything she could from the attacks, but nothing was coming together.

How did it all come together?

A sharp knock dragged her back to reality, the images fading away before her.

Luke Cage leaned in through the metal door. “Am I interrupting something?”

Misty shook her head clear. “No, please, step into my office.”

The ‘office’ that she gestured to was the back alley behind the police station, the place where deliveries were brought in and trash was taken out. Luke took the invitation and stepped out to join her, Colleen following along right behind him.

“Hey girl.” She gave Colleen some dap. “Haven’t seen you in a while. How you holding up?”

“Ah, well, you know. Getting by. Things have been quiet. Stopping your occasional burglary or assault, but nothing big until… well, until yesterday.”

“I assume you asked us out here for a reason,” Luke said.

“Sure, but can’t we catch up first? Maybe go out for some drinks?”

Luke raised an eyebrow. “You serious?”

“Yeah I’m serious, I need a goddamn drink right now.” Misty sighed. “Alright look, I’m gonna ‘leak’ some information here, as a friend and a concerned citizen. Not as a member of the NYPD. Feel me?”

Colleen leaned up against a handrail. “Well when you open with that…”

“We’re still looking at what we can get the three of them on and where we can lock them up. Until then, some of the information we gathered from the perps, while irrelevant to their overall cases, are… concerning, to say the least.”

“Concerning how?” Luke asked.

“Guy at the market,” she nodded towards Colleen, “his name’s Carl Burbank. He’s ex-CIA, and he had some special CIA tech with him.”

“Is that what those crazy prosthetics were?” Colleen asked.

“On the money.”

“Wait,” Luke said. “Prosthetics? You mean like what you got?”

“No,” Colleen said. “What Misty’s got is a mean right hook. This Burbank guy, his were way more dangerous.”

“Seamless prosthetic arms,” Misty explained. “A left and a right, indistinguishable from flesh and bone at a distance, but with hidden firearms in them.”

Luke was taken aback. “Hidden- What?”

“It was like something out of Transformers,” Colleen said. “He like, spun his hand around and then it was a gun. But I totaled his arms, I hit ‘em with the iron fist, they shouldn’t be anything more than scrap now.”

“Well he went ahead and let us know that he was supposed to be getting a shipment of backups,” Misty said. “Didn’t tell us what channels they were coming through, but one might assume that they aren’t going to be legal.”

“But there’s no way he could get to them if he’s in prison.”

“There’s not. But if he doesn’t get to them,”

Luke finished her thought, “then they’ll be sold off to someone else.”

“It’s the Judas bullets all over again. Once those arms start disseminating through the black market, it’s gonna get a hell of a lot harder to track them down.”

“Ah Christmas…” Luke muttered. “Something like that got around… that kinda thing could change how crime is done in this city.”

“Everyone’s got two arms. How can you tell who’s are real and who’s are going to kill you.”

“Ah,” Colleen said. “That doesn’t sound too good.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Luke said.

“But, you’d have to amputate your own arm to use them. Is anyone going to actually do that?”

“It’s a prisoner’s dilemma,” Misty said. “Everyone who’d think about doing it is thinking about everyone else who could do it, everyone else who to them _will_ do it and do it to fuck them over. The reward for doing it and the risk of not are both too high. And that all but ensures that someone out there will.”

“I’ll start asking some of my contacts,” Luke said. “I don’t want too many people on the lookout for when they break, but if I put out a few fingers, see if I can’t find out who’s getting them and when, I can get rid of them before they get sold.”

“We’re also hitting up some of our informants, see what the word on the street is.”

“I can help,” Colleen said. “Maybe hit up some old friends, see if they’ve heard anything.”

“I appreciate the effort, but you might be busy yourself, Immortal Iron Fist.”

Colleen’s brow scrunched. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“An epidemic of gun hands isn’t the only thing that’s cropped up from this.” Misty reached a hand into her pocket and tossed Colleen a tiny square of paper. “The crackhead had this on him.”

She looked at it, confused at first, but realization quickly broke across her face, followed immediately by dread.

A new voice made itself known. “Let me guess.”

Misty spun on her heels and, in an instant, had a gun leveled at the source. There she saw, in broad daylight no less, the devil of hell’s kitchen.

“Jesus, dude.” Misty dropped the gun back into its holster.

Daredevil, for his part, didn’t seem to care much and finished his thought. “Steel Serpent?”

“Looks like it.” Colleen tossed him the tiny packet.

Daredevil slipped his glove off and began feeling across the surface of the paper with his thumb. What he was looking for, Misty wasn’t really sure.

“Now this,” Colleen started. “It doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re back – or that she’s back.”

“It doesn’t,” Daredevil agreed, slipping his glove back on.

“Could just be someone else looking to ride the, like, illegal drug brand name.”

“It’s not normal, whatever it is. Base components of your standard street heroin are all there, but there’s something else on top of it.”

“Dragon bones?”

Misty saw Luke mouth the words ‘dragon bones’ in disbelief.

Daredevil lifted the paper up to his face and gave it a sniff. And then he gave a grimace and pulled it back down. “Hard to tell. There’s a big cloud of… a lot hanging around it.”

“Yeah…” Misty said, still trying to catch up to why the devil of Hell’s Kitchen was smelling drug paraphernalia. “The guy it came from looked like he hadn’t showered in a few years, if ever. Were you going to try and track the source like a bloodhound or something?”

Daredevil gave the slightest, almost imperceptible smirk at that one. “Just seeing what I can pick up. I’m going to see if I can’t find out where this stuff is coming from. At least put the suspicion to rest.”

“Right.” Colleen rubbed at her chin. “I’ll –… If they’re actually back… I can check out some of the old meeting places. Maybe someone will show up there.” She paused, and turned. “You wanna help, Luke? If they’re actually back in town, it’s not good news for anyone.”

“Yeah, sorry,” Luke said. “You guys are running off to chase this cult of yours on a hunch from a heroin packet. This thing with the prosthetics, that’s got a bit more weight to it, and it’s on a timer. I need to look into this now.”

“I get it.” Colleen gave Luke a firm pat on the shoulder. “Looks like the city isn’t saved just yet, huh?”

“Well, let’s see if we can’t get this done before everything goes to shit this time around.”

“Look at y’all,” Misty said. “It’s like having my own little superhero team. Well, you all got your assignments, get on it then-”

Misty looked over to see that Daredevil was already gone.

She huffed. “Of course. Alright, well, good luck you two. I’ll be stuck grilling your catch of the day for a while longer.”

“Thanks Misty,” Colleen said. “When all this is over, I’ll be sure to get you that drink.”

She ran off as well, leaving on her and Luke Cage standing in the alleyway. Luke looked out towards the street, then back to Misty.

“Can I ask you something?”

That was unexpected. She thought this meeting had been over. “Depends on what.”

“Kinda personal.” He shrugged.

“That lonely at the top, huh?”

Luke didn’t laugh. “Last night, when Speedshot or whatever his name was-”

“Shappe is his actual name.”

“Last night when Shappe attacked, there was this moment… this moment where I looked down and I understood that people might’ve been in trouble, but I thought it… wasn’t worth my time. I thought I’d let someone else handle it. That ever happen to you?”

“…Why do you ask?”

“I wonder if that’s how the Avengers and the big time heroes like them feel. Like that’s why they let so much shit happen around them. If it’s not threatening a continent, it’s below their paygrade or something.”

“You got something against the Avengers?”

“Misty, a friend of mine got _seriously _hurt because I didn’t step in sooner. He’s still in critical condition. So yeah, if I can help it, I don’t want to end up like them.”

She sighed. “Well, I mean, I get paid to care.”

“I’m being serious here.”

“I get it. I don’t know Luke, you’ve been at this for so long, I’d be surprised if you didn’t get tired of handling every problem that crops up in your neck of the woods. If you get to the point that you realize that you can’t help everyone, you then fall back on a system that lets you help who you can and trust that the people above and below you are doing their jobs just as well.”

“You honestly believe that? You and I have both seen who’s sticking their neck out for the people at the bottom.”

“That we have,” Misty said. “I guess there’s not really an answer. I just know that if you insist on staying there and helping those people, it gets that much harder to move up past them. We both do what we can, help who we can, but we both have our positions. We don’t really live in that neighborhood anymore.”

Luke nodded. “Alright.”

“And just try to remember, what you’re doing right now, it’s still helping those people.”

“Right. Thanks Misty.”

“No problem.” She smacked him on the shoulder with her _good_ arm. That made him flinch a little. “Now go get ‘em, superhero.”

That actually got a smile from Luke. “Don’t push it.”

One last wave and he turned and ran off, leaving Misty by herself.

She sighed. That was probably going to be the last break she got today. It was going to be rough.

* * *

Jess hadn’t made it 10 steps out the front door of her apartment building when-

“Jessica Joooooooooones!”

Jess groaned, turned away from the source and tried walking the other way, like maybe the teenager would get confused if she wasn’t sure it was her and give up and go home.

“Jones, hey,” Kara said as she ran up anyways. “Jones. Jones! Hey! Did you change your mind? Are you taking my case?”

“What gave you that impression.”

“I mean, what else would you be doing out here?”

“Maybe I’m working someone else’s case.”

“Really? What kinda case is it?”

“…” Nope, didn’t have one for that. “I’m not taking shit, okay. I need to see for myself if Kilgrave is actually back or not. Nothing to do with you.”

“That makes it sound like you’re taking my case. Need any help?”

“Kid-”

“Kara.”

_“Kara,”_ Jess growled through her teeth. “I don’t need your help on this. I can track this asshole down in my sleep at this point. If he gets to you that’s one more problem I have to deal with. And you don’t want to see what I’m about to do to him when I find him. So just stay out of my way. In fact, just go home, okay?”

Kara scoffed. “Fine.”

She continued walking alongside Jessica.

“You hard of hearing or something.”

“Pretty sure the greyhound station is this way.”

It in fact was not.

Jessica sighed. At least she was drunk.

* * *

Matt Murdock pondered, as he sat perched on the edge of the building’s rooftop like a gargoyle frozen in the midday sun, that he was usually a lot smarter about these kinds of things. More tactical. Operating under the cover of night was best. He had the upper hand at night, when everyone else was blind. During the day, he was just some wackjob in a costume sitting on a roof.

Across the street was an apartment building. A party had been raging in a two-bedroom on the fourth floor last night. Now it was on its last legs. Matt was waiting for the last person there to pass out.

There was a rumbling from his pocket. His phone was going off. With the volume at the absolute lowest, muffled by Matt’s body armor, and being dispersed into an open space, it was very unlikely that anyone else could hear it, even if they were right next to him. Matt heard it though. Foggy was calling.

Matt reached into his pocket and canceled the call.

A moment passed, his attention shifting back to the apartment-

Foggy called again.

Matt sighed. He backed away from the edge of the roof and moved to somewhere a little more secluded in the middle, before fishing his phone out and answering.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“What’s up yourself, you planning on coming into the office today?”

Matt inhaled a small breath through his teeth. “Sorry, I got a little wrapped up in something.”

“Look, I know you’ve got your other business and I try to be supportive and I want to give you space, but man, you’ve been in the office maybe once a week since the blip.”

“I’m really sorry Foggy, I promise as soon as things start calming down-”

“You think it’s bad out there? Matt, it’s chaos in here too. We’re wading through cases right now because everything’s in disarray and nobody knows who’s entitled to what. Me and Karen can only go through so much in a day, you know.”

“I’ll be there to help as soon as I can. Tomorrow even. The rest of the week.”

“Matt, it’s Friday.”

“I’ll work the weekend, then.”

“I know you feel bad about – not being there. I get it. It sucks when you just miss out on something you could’ve helped with. But right now, I think people need a Matt Murdock more than they need a-… personal friend of ours.”

“Foggy, let me tell you, you make a really compelling argument. But I really, _really_ can’t come in today. Today specifically. Sorry.”

“Matt-”

“Gotta go, see you tomorrow.”

Beep. Matt hung up.

He gave a sigh. Was that a dick move? Probably.

Matt really did not want to think about the blip.

New York had been burning. His city had been under attack. _Again._

Matt had arrived too late to try and fight off the invaders, and if he were entirely honest it had seemed like the Avengers had things handled. But when the fallout started hitting and started hitting hard, they’d already ran off. Deep space or something. Off to beat up the existential threat, while buildings were falling back home.

It had been a busy day for Matt. He heard every single scream across the entire island, and he was only able to help maybe 5% of them. Some people had been trapped under rubble, some had just been left out in the open, too injured to move. Everyone was panicking, some just tried to run as far as they could, some took advantage of the chaos to get away with taking what they could. And Matt was alone to try and deal with all of them.

He leaped from one rooftop to a construction site next to it. It had been a practiced maneuver, one he could do in his sleep, and then something odd happened. A rising tension from his gut overtook his nerves, his brain screamed that something was wrong, but he wasn’t sure what exactly it was.

There was an instant, less than an instant of nothing.

And then Matthew Murdock had been flying towards a building he didn’t recognize. There was no time for him to react, and nothing he could do to stop it. He had slammed into the concrete side, fell three stories, hit a dumpster, and rolled to a stop. His senses were going haywire trying to adjust, nothing was where it was supposed to be.

All he could feel in that moment was the city falling apart around him for a second time.

Matt shook the thought out of his head. The last of the party dwellers had finally passed out across the street. No time for wallowing in the past, now it was time for business.

He ran forward, pressed his boot against the lip of the roof, and took a leap. Every jump came with a paranoia in the back of his skull these days. That it would all happen again. That he’d fall on his face and it would all start over again.

Every time, Matt pushed through that paranoia. He couldn’t let the fear hold him back.

Matt pulled his billy club and gave it a flick. A wire whizzed out from its base as the top half was sent flying and wrapped around a lamppost. There was a click as the winch tightened, and Matt swung across to the balcony of the apartment.

He landed quietly, the club clacked back into place, and he shoved it into his holster then moved to the screen door. He jiggered the frame until the cheap latch locking it in place relented and he was able to slide it open.

Inside the apartment was a dozen passed out twenty-somethings. They’d be fine in a couple hours, probably a rough hangover though. The air in the apartment was clouded over with a cocktail of smells for Matt to sift through. First he had to put aside the general musty odor that had sunk into the carpets and furniture, then the empty pizza boxes with a few slices still sitting in the morning sunlight, plus other various snacks, the food in the fridge and in the pantries, a lot of it starting to go bad.

Moving past that, there were a couple of illegal substances he could smell around the apartment. A lot of weed. Some harder stuff, a couple LSD tablets, or the empty paper that once held them. There was a crack pipe somewhere in here but Matt wasn’t sure if it had been used recently.

Matt’s ear twitched. The guy in the bathroom. His heart had just stopped.

Matt swore and pushed against the bathroom door. It was locked. He kicked it open, the impact cracking the wood in half.

He rushed over to the passed out man, leaned over, and began pumping his hands against his chest. Keeping the blood flowing would buy him time, but it wouldn’t save his life. He needed an ambulance as soon as possible. Matt had his phone, but he didn’t quite like the idea of putting his number in a system when he was here illegally as Daredevil.

It didn’t matter. One of the others had woken up. They were coming over now.

“Hey, Jonah.” The woman stepping into the bathroom doorway was rubbing her eye. “You’re still giving me a ride, right-”

She paused as she noticed Daredevil in the middle of the bathroom, crouched above Jonah’s body. Matt didn’t stop what he was doing.

“He needs an ambulance,” he said.

The woman just stood there in shock.

“Call an ambulance.”

She jumped and fished her phone from her pocket. Matt heard her dial 911.

“Hello, yes,” she started. “My friend needs an ambulance… What’s wrong with him?”

“His heart’s stopped.”

“His heart- His heart’s stopped!? I mean- No, yes, his heart- his heart’s stopped… No, yeah, someone is uh – already on it.”

Matt continued his pumping as the woman rattled off the address and apartment number, said thanks, and hung up.

“You know how to do CPR?” Matt asked.

The woman shook her head.

“Come over here.”

She stumbled over to where Jonah was laying and stood above him in confusion.

“Give me your hands.”

She crouched down next to him, still unsure and confused. Without missing a beat, he grabbed both of her hands and held them under his as he pumped. He could feel her shaking underneath him, but he pressed forward and drilled the rhythm into her muscle memory. He pulled his hands away when he thought she could handle it.

“Good. When the paramedics arrive, tell them what he took.”

She blinked and quickly nodded.

With room to breathe, Matt quickly took in a scent that had lingered at the bottom of the air in the room. While she continued to pump away, Matt reached into Jonah’s pocket and produced a small slip of paper.

“What are you-”

He pulled his glove off and ran a thumb over the paper’s surface. Printed on it in ink was the symbol of the steel serpent.

“Do you know where he got this?” Matt asked.

She just looked at him for a second. “Probably from our usual dealer…”

“I need to know where they are.”

* * *

It had been a long time since Colleen had been back to the old compound. Years maybe. The flood of emotions that returned to her then, the sense of nostalgia tinged with bitter stings of betrayal and the horror of recalling the gentle smile of Bakuto as he severed Misty’s arm, these were all things she expected. These were things she could somewhat prepare herself for.

She hadn’t been expecting the campus to be quite so populated.

After the Hand fell, its five fingers severed one by one, all of its footsoldiers scattered to the wind. Colleen had come here immediately after it had happened specifically to check. She’d hoped some of those kids could stick around, that the compound could still be used for housing even without the Hand backing it, but when she’d arrived back then, it was a ghost town. And she had reasoned that it was maybe for the best. Going back out into the world would hopefully help to counteract the brainwashing to some degree. It certainly worked for Colleen.

Now though, the courtyard along must’ve had at least a hundred people in it, relaxing on the grass, milling about, or moving from place to place. None of them children by any means, but all of them certainly young. Late teens and early adults, exactly the kind of people the Hand sought when she was with them.

To say it was upsetting was the least justice one could give to the feeling brewing in Colleen’s gut right now.

Colleen put a hand to the wall next to her to steady herself. She was starting to attract looks. At first it was just the occasional side eye, but whether it was how she looked, how she was acting, or maybe just that they’d been told she didn’t belong, what started as light glances became a crowd staring her down in curiosity.

Colleen was nervous. Backed into a corner, she followed her gut and reached for her blade. Pulling it an inch out revealed the slightest strip of cold steel. The kids before her recoiled in surprise, a number of them taking off running from the scene the second her metal hit air.

Well that wasn’t right. Not a single one drew their weapons or took their combat stances, even if they were only in training, they should still be able to put up some kind of fight.

Colleen realized that she might’ve just attempted to pull her blade on a bunch of college kids.

A couple of concerned security guards broke through the crowd and jogged up to her.

Colleen sighed. “I need to speak to whoever’s in charge here.”

It took a bit of explaining, conversing, complaining, coercion, and having Misty Knight yell over the phone, but she did eventually convince the security not to toss her out on her ass and bar her from ever entering again, and instead was lead to the office of, according to the placard on his door, one Dean Morley Erwin.

Colleen knocked and received a “Come in,” in response. The inside of the office was about what she expected, a warm brown color with a polished wooden desk in the middle, couple chairs in front of it, some full-to-bursting bookcases behind it, and a framed degree in economics on the wall above it confirming that the dean’s name was in fact, Morley Erwin. Erwin himself sat at the desk, he was this mousey looking, brown-haired, clean shaven, scrawny guy wearing a rumpled shirt and a way too eager smile.

“Miss Wing, please, have a seat,” he said, and she did.

“I didn’t introduce myself.”

“Oh, I know who you are.”

“It doesn’t sound that good when you say it like that.”

“I’m a big fan of your work, Miss Wing. This is- It’s really a pleasant surprise that you actually came to me for something.”

“My – work?”

“Your hero work! You’re the Immortal Iron Fist! I mean, in terms of local superheroes, you’re one of the most open and vocal about the issues of the community, maybe behind Luke Cage, but it’s very inspiring stuff.”

“…Right.” Colleen wasn’t really sure how to handle being treated like a celebrity.

“So,” Erwin said after a pause. “What can I help you with?”

“Oh. Sorry, I’m just – confused. What exactly uh, is this place?”

Erwin looked just as confused as she felt. “The… Martin University of New York?”

“Just a university?”

“Y- Yeah, of course.”

“Cause the last I remember, this entire site had been abandoned, and it’s just hard to believe that something else cropped up here so fast.”

“So fast? It’s been-… Miss Wing, can I ask you a personal question?”

Colleen narrowed her eyes.

“Were you around for the, erm, the blip?”

Oh. “No, I wasn’t.”

Colleen had been meditating when it happened. She barely noticed a thing. Some of the noises from outside were a little weird, but Colleen didn’t know what had happened until Danny called. He was panicking, she was confused. He told her that she’d been dead for five years, and that was hard to wrap her head around.

As soon as she did though, the thought had become terrifying.

New York had been without an Iron Fist for five years. Five turbulent, chaotic years, when people needed all the help they could get. And Colleen had just been sleeping for that. It wasn’t something she could help of course, no matter how many times she ran the events over in her head, there wasn’t anything she could do or any action she could change that would make things turn out any different, so the only path forward was acceptance. She knew that, but something still grated at the back of her mind.

But more than that, the _world_ had been without an Iron Fist for five years. The Iron Fist was supposed to be the check against the Hand. If you had a rat problem, you got a cat. The world had a Hand problem, so they had the Iron Fist. That’s who Colleen was supposed to be, Danny had entrusted her with that title and the power that came with it. And the world just, didn’t have that. For five years. For five years, if the Hand had made any moves, any steps to recovery, Colleen wasn’t there to stop them because she was too busy being dead, apparently. Until today, there had been no sign that this had been the case, just a niggling paranoia in the back of her skull, so seeing Misty hand her that heroin packet confirmed every nasty thought she’d had since coming back.

Even just seeing this campus full of people again, it made her feel sick to her stomach.

And of course, Danny had also had been without Colleen Wing for five years. When you stack it up against the threat of the Hand it didn't feel as important, but it was still an anxiety that had settled in the pit of Colleen's gut. He was five years older than her now. He had five years of experience, travelling the world and vanquishing evil, that she just didn't have. It felt like there was a weird disconnect between them these days. Or maybe he didn't care and it was just Colleen who had trouble with it.

She pushed the thought aside and focused on her mission.

“If this was all established while I was… gone,” she said. “I guess that makes sense.”

Erwin shrugged. “Regardless of whether you thought the big purple alien had a point or not, well, the population got cut in half. We didn’t really need any more extra housing. The campus was already here. Owners had disappeared a long time ago. It kind of seemed too good to be true.”

“I see.”

The enthusiasm seemed to be slowly draining from Erwin’s face. “Was- Was that all you needed?”

Colleen sputtered out a sigh. Might as well throw this guy a bone. “I’m following a lead right now. I’m trying to track down the people who owned this place before. Th- The ones that disappeared. They might still be around.”

“Oh.” He perked right back up, then shrank down again as he quite visibly started thinking. “Well, uhm, hmm… I’m afraid I don’t know much, ehm, a lot of the minutia of who owned what kind of, heh, kind of got lost in the shuffle after the- you know.”

“I’ve got enough of an idea at any rate. Anything unusual happening recently? You been, I dunno, accosted by weird guys in ninja outfits?”

“N- Ninjas?”

Colleen waved a dismissive hand. “It’s a joke. I’m joking.”

Erwin nervously laughed along. “Well, uhm- oh!” He tapped a pointer finger against his chin in excitement. “I got a call the other day, weirdest thing in my life, some guy wanted to buy the campus back from me. I told him no, anything he could reasonably pay for it wouldn’t really match the long term investment, but he gave me a meeting place anyways.”

Colleen suddenly leaned forward. “Where was it?”

“Wh- Wha-”

“Where did he tell you to meet him?”

“Uh- somewhere midtown, I didn’t take it that seriously.”

“Where midtown? What did he tell you?”

Erwin jumped and fumbled with his pen and began scribbling down an address down on his notepad.

“I- I think this was it-”

Colleen snatched the piece of paper from his desk as soon as he was finished and dashed out of the office. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome- I mean- if you need – anything -… else…” He called fruitlessly after her, but Colleen was already well out of earshot.

* * *

If Luke Cage wanted information, the first and easiest place to look was Turk’s big mouth. He just needed to know where Turk was.

The first guy he asked spilled the beans immediately. The second guy he asked quickly corroborated the first guy’s claims. Third said the same thing and then said some nasty things about Turk’s mother.

So Luke went to the junkyard.

He wandered through literal mountains of trash to find Turk, sitting by a scrapheap in a beaten to high heaven, disfigured, _ancient_ Camaro with a single flat tire, all the windshields shattered and, from the look of things, basically only half a steering wheel left in the entire dashboard.

“Hey Turk,” Luke called out.

Turk looked up, spotted Luke, and immediately threw his hands up in frustration.

“Aw, nah, come on man! I can’t keep doing this!”

Luke approached with a casual nod. “Don’t know what you mean.”

“You know what I mean. Squeeze old Turk for information once, that’s fine. I’m just trying to get by, I cooperate. All of y’all coming at me every other day, people are gonna stop letting me in on shit, man! You’re ruining all my carefully cultivated business relations! Shit!”

Luke leaned up against the car, elbow on the hood. “You done?”

Turk sighed. “Yeah.”

“Nothing big this time, I promise. Just looking for a little information on who I need to talk to.”

“Yeah, whatever, make it quick. I got some business to attend to.”

Luke looked around the empty trash heap. “Out here?”

“Yeah man, used car people pay a decent living if you can find the right parts. Long as you ain’t afraid to get a little dirty.”

“Well I’m proud of you, making an honest name for yourself. How do you know the parts you get actually work though?”

“Shit man, I don’t know. They don’t gotta know that I don’t know though.”

Luke nodded. Of course. “I’m looking for arms, Turk.”

“What, big boss man can’t find himself a piece? In this age we’re living in?”

“I’m not just looking for guns, Turk. Prosthetic arms. Super advanced things. From what I’ve heard they’re special enough to get passed around on the black market, you heard anything?”

“You know what, maybe I won’t tell you. How about that?”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. What are you going to do about it, Luke Cage?”

Luke looked at him for a second. He then reached down, grabbed the edge of the car door and twisted it, metal screeching loudly and making Turk jump in his seat, until he was confident that door wouldn’t open anymore.

He fixed Turk with a look.

“Man, you got nothing. I’ve done this song and dance with the Punisher, with Wilson Fisk. You ain’t got the position, you fell off, disappeared for five years, and when you got back you had to beg the cops to give you your fancy nightclub back. I know for a fact that you ain’t gonna kill me, cause you don’t kill anyone do you Mr. Superhero. And you know what, this ain’t even my car. So do your worst, cause what the hell can you do to me, Luke Cage?”

Damn, Turk grew some balls.

Luke wouldn’t exactly call it falling off, but it was hard to deny what happened.

When the aliens invaded for a second time, Luke Cage’s first priority had been Harlem. They had been far enough away that buildings weren’t falling, but panic had still set in. Luke Cage was the brick that kept Harlem steady, it wasn’t enough to just help out, he had to be seen helping. Rushing from emergency to emergency, herding the wounded, getting people out of dangerous areas, stopping the occasional looter. It had gone on for what felt like hours with no stop.

And then something weird happened.

Luke had been rushing across the street, having just carried a kid with a broken leg back to his mama, over to another woman yelling about how her son had disappeared.

Everything shifted.

Luke hadn’t been able to catch what exactly had happened at first, the only thing he noticed was the car coming at him. A car that definitely hadn’t been there moments ago. Luke was launched, rolled along the pavement, and eventually came to a dizzying stop.

The car had screeched to a halt as the world finally slowed back down around Luke. He had pushed himself up. Around him, dozens of other people were appearing out of thin air. Whatever was happening though, it went deeper than that. Luke knew Harlem like the back of his hand, and things were different than they had been a second ago. That deli across the street was now a flower shop. An apartment complex down the block looked like a business tower now. It was dizzying, confusing, Luke had almost believed he was in a dream or something.

He did, however, eventually figure out what had happened.

After the battle with the aliens, the Avengers fucked it up so bad that half of all people on earth just disappeared for five years, Luke included. They had apparently only just now managed to fix it and bring everyone back.

Luke had nothing now. Harlem’s Paradise was now being run by some cat named Gordon Fraley. His old apartment had been rented out to a new family. He was surprised to find that his bank account was still open (and five years of interest wasn’t a bad feeling) but that’s what he was living off of for now. He had needed a new place to stay and a new way to make some green.

By some miracle of miracles, Pop’s was still open and operating. Bobby’d even managed to avoid getting blipped, as people were calling it. Luke had to start from the bottom all over again.

Over half a year after everyone came back, after Luke had managed to get settled, it was announced that there was now a reclamation process in place for getting back property that’d been lost because of the blip. It wasn’t hard for Luke to prove that he had ownership of Harlem’s Paradise, what was hard was scrounging up the money for lawyer fees to settle it in court. Luke had gotten his nightclub back, but the more he looked around Harlem, the less he could see other people managing the same. If you couldn’t afford someone to represent you in court, there wasn’t much you could do if the new owners held out. Everyone else was stuck back at the bottom.

But Luke had told himself, the best thing he could do for Harlem was get that nightclub back, put his thumb back on the borough’s crime scene, he didn’t really have time to focus on much else.

But he was here to help people now, so if that’s all he could do, that’s what he would do.

“What am I gonna do Turk? You wanna know what I’m gonna do?”

Turk just stared back, jaw kept stiff and clenched.

“I’m gonna be straight with you.”

That caught Luke a head cock and a raised eyebrow.

“What I’m looking for? It’s real dangerous shit. It’s a way to hide your guns in plain sight. Now, if you’re really in as deep of shit as you say, the last thing I think that you want is to be looking over your shoulder every hour of every day and have it not even matter. So if you wanna save your own hide, it’s in your best interest to tell me what I want to know.”

Turk took a deep breath as he mulled it over. Luke waited patiently, staring him down.

“Alright look,” he eventually said. “I don’t know nothing about no prosthetic arms that hide guns or whatever the fuck you just said. But what I do know is, after the snap there was a pretty sizable hole to fill in terms of who’s moving what. There’s a new guy at the top from what I hear, any weapons that come into the city worth a nickel go through him.”

“How about a name?”

“Stoneface.”

“That’s a name?”

“It’s what he goes by man, I don’t know! Goddamn everybody wants in on that superhero supervillain shit nowadays, probably just thought it sounded cool.”

“And where can I find ‘Stoneface’?”

“Boss man likes to hang out at a club uptown, Club 1610. Your best bet would be to check there.”

Luke nodded. “Thanks for the help, Turk.” He turned and made his way out of the junkyard.

“Wh- Hey. Hey! Luke, ain’t you gonna fix the door so I can get out?”

“Good luck with your dumpster diving, Turk,” he called back without turning around.

“God- Mother- Bitch- Cage!”

* * *

“So, where are we off to first?” Kara asked.

“Why are you following me,” Jessica said.

“Because you’re taking my case,” she said. “And I still have information that you need. All you gotta do is ask me for it.”

Jessica huffed. She definitely wasn’t going to ask. “Your dad’s a creature of habit. Kilgrave has a couple of favorite spots around the city. And he’s very, very used to getting what he wants. If he’s back in town, he’ll have visited one of them at some point. Avoiding them would involve not existing in the lap of privilege.”

“Oh, smart. Cool, cool.”

Jessica looked over at Kara. “Aren’t you scared.”

“Of what?”

“I dunno, Kilgrave tells you to slit your throat the second he sees you, or something.”

Kara gave a laugh, equal parts surprise and discomfort. “Why would he do that?”

Jess looked her over. Reaction was pretty suspicious. Either Kara knew more than she was letting on, or she was an awkward teenager. It was a tough distinction to wade through, Jessica knew from experience.

“He doesn’t like me much. Maybe he won’t recognize you.”

Another nervous laugh. “Well I’m pretty sure that won’t happen.”

She could be as innocent as she claimed, Jess was familiar with Kilgrave’s idea of domestic bliss. He liked to keep things as ‘normal’ as physically possible. Made her stomach turn just thinking about it. Or she could be in denial. The more she talked to Kara the harder it was to pin down what her actual relationship was to dear old dad.

She said something about his powers being able to alter the formation of memories too. Would he hit his own daughter with something like that.

The more Jessica thought about it, the more uncomfortable she became at the fact that she had no idea.

“So you do, like, the same shit as him, right.” Since she was thinking about it.

“Um, I think so. But I think it’s kinda different.”

“Oh okay that clears everything up.”

“Dad always complained about how, like, whenever he told anyone to do anything, even if he didn’t actually want them to, they’d always do it anyways.”

“Yeah, I remember that.”

“Well, I don’t actually have that problem. I always have to, like, concentrate on someone to get them to do what I say. Trying to do more than one person at once gives me a headache.”

“So you couldn’t like, tell a whole room to stop talking.”

Kara shook her head. “Nope.”

“Just to one person.”

“Three on a good day. My record is five.”

“How different are your powers.”

“I don’t really know, I just picked up on that one bit.”

So much for a secret weapon.

“Alright, we’re here,” Jessica said. “Just stand back and let me do the talking, okay.”

“Roger.” Kara gave Jess a salute.

Jess gave Kara a sneer and pushed through the glass doors.

She entered into a posh, upscale sushi place that had previously been an Asian fusion place that had previously been a classical Italian place.

“Wait, are we just getting lunch?” Kara asked while they waited for a host.

“Stop saying we,” Jess said back. “Your dad hates compromise more than anything.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“This used to be his favorite restaurant. He still came here even after they got bought out and forced them to make his favorite dish regardless.”

“Oh… so… what?”

“So if he’s back in town he’ll have stopped here again.”

A well to do Japanese guy in a clean, pressed, fresh out the plastic looking white shirt approached. “Good evening ladies, table for two?”

“Actually I need to speak to the manager.”

He faltered. “What for?”

“Just get them.”

“Right away, sorry,” and he scurried off again.

“Actually, do you think we could get some sushi while we’re here?” Kara called after him.

“Sampler platter?” asked back the host.

“Oh, that sounds good.”

“No,” Jess said at Kara. “No,” she said at the host. “Just- No sushi, just get the goddamn manager.”

“Jesus.” He sneered back over his shoulder as he ducked into a back room.

Jess looked down at Kara.

“What?” she asked. “I’m hungry.”

A few seconds later a decidedly _not_ Japanese guy came out from the back room, thick guy with a thick, red, curly beard and a set of thin glasses perched on top of his thick nose.

“Yes?” he asked. “Can I help you?”

“Hi, Jessica Jones, private investigator, I’m just looking for a person, they might’ve stopped in here in the past…” She looked back at Kara.

“Two weeks.”

Jessica nodded to her.

“Uhm, well,” the manager ran some thick fingers through his thick, curly hair. “I can try to help as best I can, but I don’t remember, or even see every customer that eats here.”

“You’d remember this guy, white, male, British, around six foot, brown hair kept short, light stubble, mid-thirties, maybe early-fourties I don’t know if he was blipped, probably wearing a purple three-piece suit, maybe made a really weird order.”

“Weird like, what, like hold the wasabi weird?”

“Weird like you’d know what I’m talking about if he did.”

“Well, I’m sorry Ms. Jones, but I don’t recall anyone of that specific description, we haven’t had any Brits in here recently, have we?”

The host from earlier gave it some thought. “There was the one last week, but he was black.”

Jess pulled out her notepad, scribbled her number on a page, tore it off, and handed it to the guy. “Well if you see him, give me a call.”

“Is he dangerous?”

Jessica blinked. “Excuse me.”

“I mean, you’re Jessica Jones. Don’t you usually go after – dangerous people?”

“…Nah. I’m just trying to find this kid’s dad. A job is a job, you know.”

“Right, of course. I’ll keep an eye out.”

He turned back and started heading towards his office again.

“Wait,” Kara said. “That’s it?”

“Yeah? Why, you expecting something more.”

“I mean, you didn’t needle him at all or dig up any dirt or – you just asked him a question and then he answered it!”

“That’s how this works. I’m not interrogating this guy, he’s got no reason to lie to me or hide information. Not unless Kilgrave’s already got to him.”

Kara scratched at her chin for a second.

“Hey!” she yelled. “Hold up!”

The manager stopped at the door and turned around. “Huh?”

“If you’ve seen him you have to tell the truth, you have to tell us right now!”

“Oh- wha- I mean, I haven’t. No, I really haven’t I swear.”

“Okay,” Jess said. “Thank you for your cooperation, I’ll be in touch.”

She already had Kara by the back of her shirt, dragging her out the door.

“What the hell are you doing,” she growled between her teeth.

“You thought that dad told him not to say anything and he’s still following that order, right?”

“It was possible, didn’t say it was definitely the case.”

“Well, if he was then I can give him a new command. We can override each other. It’s happened before.”

“That’s great, unless Kilgrave set up contingencies, which he usually does. You just risked that guy’s life doing that.”

“Well, he didn’t, so it’s fine. The guy hasn’t seen him, he’s fine. It’s fine, Jones.”

“That’s not the-” Jessica took a deep breath, then turned and stalked off.

“Hey, wait up!” Kara ran up after her. “So are we getting lunch or not?”

* * *

Matt took one last deep breath. The dealer was in apartment 4123, his window latch was unlocked, his attention was currently on his computer monitor.

Time to make an entrance.

Matt jumped, pushed himself off a dumpster, kicked off the opposite wall, off a window lip, scrambling up an extra few feet before he latched onto the windowsill of the dealer’s apartment on the fourth floor.

Carefully and quietly he pulled himself up to a crouch and slid the window open as quietly as he could. He pulled out both his clubs, gave it a moment to recheck his calculations, then tossed them both forward one after the other. They hit the front door of the apartment, in rhythm, _thu-thunk_, then bounced back to Matt’s hands just as quickly.

The dealer looked up from his computer, pulled his headphones off, and went to the door. Matt slipped into the apartment and closed the window behind him. While he opened the door and looked outside, checking down both lengths of hallway outside to try and see who’d knocked, Matt began flicking the lights off. He didn’t notice the first from the bedroom. He did when the kitchen light went out though. He spun and Matt made sure to stay behind his line of sight, maneuvering around the apartment to turn off the last light off. How dark it actually was, Matt wasn’t sure, it was still daytime after all.

That was alright though, Matt wanted the guy to see him.

The dealer had been successfully spooked, he reached for a small cabinet against the wall to his side and pulled a pistol.

“Whoever you are, I ain’t playing around here.”

Matt knocked on the wall next to him. The dealer spun around, saw Matt, and fired. Matt heard every single twitch, the quiet scrape of metal on metal of the trigger being pulled, and the exact moment it retracted fully. He took that moment to lean out of the way, and only heard after the fact when the bullet whizzed past his ear.

The dealer swallowed, then tossed the gun to the side and threw his hands up.

“Hey, man, I haven’t done anything – nothing illegal I swear.”

“You just shot at me.”

“Self-defense, you’re a home intruder.”

“You sell drugs.”

“Come on man I just need the money to help get me through school.”

Matt heard a half dozen other residents in apartments surrounding this one, all panicking from the sounds of gunfire. Many were already calling the police. Exact addresses, approximations of apartment numbers, a few got it right, confirmation that vehicles were on their way.

“You’re lying to me. Let’s establish now, I don’t like when you do that.”

“Come _on_ man, what do you want from me?”

“We’ve only got a few minutes to ourselves before the cops turn this place over. They’ll take care of your peddling practice, I just want information.”

“Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit! What the fuck did you do?”

Matt knew he was about to go for the gun again before he did, and quietly kicked it towards a corner.

He pulled the steel serpent packet from his pocket. “I want to know where you got this.”

“I don’t know anything about that.” Lie.

“Wrong answer. Give another one and I start breaking fingers.”

“Fine, fine! I don’t know man, I got the normal set from my supplier and a couple of the packets had the weird snake on them, I don’t know anything about them, I thought it was just a weird tracking method.” Lie.

“What about this situation makes you think I have the patience to deal with this.” Sirens were approaching, a few blocks down now. Matt stepped forward and snatched up his wrist.

“Please man come on, I’m not- I’m not supposed to tell man!” Truth.

Matt gripped the man’s pinky finger, tight. “A man almost died this morning because of this drug. How liable do you want to be held for what’s about to happen?”

“Wh- Who, what?” Truth.

“You’re out of time. Tell me now or I’m leaving with this hand.”

“Okay. Okay! I was going to pick up my supply in Harlem and this guy, this guy came up to me-”

“What guy? Details.”

“I- I- I dunno dude, kinda old, cheap suit, dorky fucking bowl cut, I didn’t get a name or anything, he just- he knew who I was and he offered me some fancy drug that’d been off the market for a while.” Truth. “Said I could sell them for twice the price. I got them for real cheap, cheaper than the regular stuff, so I didn’t think much- but he said he’d stop selling them to me if I ever told anyone and I-”

“Where?”

“Out front of some shitty apartments, Brook- Oak- Oakridge, Oakridge Apartments.” Truth. Bingo.

Heavy footsteps coming up the stairs. Out of time. Matt let go of the dealer’s hand and shoved him backwards where he stumbled into an armchair.

“Word of advice, start looking for a new job. Either that or start locking your window.”

With that he strode across the apartment, opened the window back up, and slipped out just as the first cop kicked the door down, gun at the ready. “NYPD, freeze!” they yelled.

Rather than scale back down, Matt climbed up, jumping from the apartment building to the building next to it until he reached the roof. The police had already begun asking the dealer questions, the dealer was talking about how Daredevil broke into his apartment, but Matt could smell the sweat from here as the cops began searching the place.

Harlem huh? Matt hated to butt in on Luke’s territory like that, but a lead was a lead, and Luke was probably busy enough on his own.

* * *

Richardson Tower wasn’t the fanciest building in New York by any metric, but it certainly wasn’t _un_impressive. The tiles were clean, the lobby had a receptionist in a nice suit, there were more than 5 floors, parking garage to the side. It was pretty nice. Colleen might’ve looked out of place in jeans and a hoodie and a sword.

“Can I help you?” the receptionist asked.

Colleen had really hoped he should could get in and out without having to go through anyone, but eye contact had been made. If she tried to barge past now, she’d probably only get security called on her.

“Hi, I’m here to discuss business matters with the people in 502.”

“Business matters…” he looked over Colleen with suspicion. She was already forcing herself to be ready to leave instead of fight if things went south. “Name and _exact_ business?”

“Colleen Wing, I’m here to discuss the purchase of the Martin University.”

“You’re here to discuss real estate purchases… with a design studio.”

Colleen hesitated for a second, and she could tell that second was all that the receptionist needed. “That’s just the address that I got. I wasn’t really going to question it till I got in the room, you know?” That ‘you know’ was also completely suspicious.

The receptionist gave a deep sigh. “Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to l-”

“I work with Rand.”

He blinked. “Excuse me?”

“I’m an employee of Rand Enterprises.” Colleen fished out the employee ID that Danny gave her and slapped it down on the table. “In fact, I’m a secretary to Mr. Rand himself, so if this deal falls through it’s gonna be very bad for a lot of people. Including you.”

“Including me?” he seemed incredulous.

This was definitely gamble territory. Colleen was definitely going too far too deep and all by herself. She should call up Danny, hearing it from him would seal this and she knew he’d play along.

“Yeah, you too. You know how much private schools make in this economy? You want to be responsible for sinking a deal with that much money riding on the line? Cause I’ll make sure they know the name of the guy who stopped this Mr.” her eyes darted down to check his name tag, “Bigelow.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Dead serious.”

Mr. Bigelow huffed, stared Colleen down for a second, grabbed her ID and looked it over as closely as he could, all while Colleen stood there with arms folded. Then eventually, with a sigh, he handed the ID back.

“Leave the weapon, if you wouldn’t mind.”

Colleen fiddled with the strap of her katana’s sheath, but quickly relented, slung it off her shoulders, and handed it off. The receptionist clearly wasn’t entirely sure how to hold or handle it, and awkwardly leaned it up against his desk.

“If I catch a hint of any commotion, I’m calling security.”

“Perfectly reasonable.” Colleen nodded him off and moved towards the elevators. She could hear him continue to groan and grumble as she went.

Into the elevator and up five floors, Colleen exited to a basic carpeting and basic white walls. There was a big set of double doors to her immediate right with a buzzer with a speaker. But that was suite 500. 502 was a smaller single door that wasn’t even locked, letting Colleen barge right in. The ‘office’ was just a meeting room with a long table and a whiteboard, connected to about three total individual offices.

Well, that made this next part pretty easy.

She started banging on office doors. “Staff meeting! Staff meeting. Get out here, staff meeting.”

Three confused heads poked their way out from three different offices. A blond white guy, a blond white guy with longer hair, and a blond white guy with piercings.

Colleen frowned. “You brothers or something?”

“Wh-” long hair started. “Who are you?”

‘Right,” Colleen huffed. “Okay so this is how it’s gonna work, I’m the crazy lady who broke into your office, it wasn’t hard you guys don’t even have a lock. I’m gonna ask some questions, when I get an answer I don’t like, I break something. That table looks expensive, important, you wanna start with that?”

The three of them looked at each other.

“What?” asked piercings.

“I said I’m going to break your table!” That made the three of them jump. “First question, who here knows anything about Martin University?”

Quiet, confused stares all around.

Colleen lifted one leg and placed the heel of her shoe against the table’s lip. “Going once.”

“Hang on, hang on,” default started. “W- We’re all from the Art Institute.”

“Yeah,” long hair said. “Martin U, what is that, like, competing art school?”

Colleen lifted her leg up, ever so slightly. “If I find out any of you are lying I’m gonna break something a lot worse than this.”

“I swear,” said default. “You can check the financial records. I’ll have the student loans to prove it for the next 20 years.”

The cover story was all wrong if it was a lie. If any of these guys wanted to hide their interest in the site, they’d deny even knowing it, or talk about having heard it. But they seemed to think Colleen was asking because of their prospective attendance, it was too specifically wrong.

“Good answer, next question.” Colleen raised her leg just a little bit higher. “What about the Hand?”

“Hand?” asked piercings. “Like, hand hand?” He held up his hand and wiggled his fingers to demonstrate.

Colleen didn’t respond.

“Didn’t you do an internship at a place, Hand something?” asked default.

“No, no,” long haired said back. “That was Hands On, it was just a workshop though.”

“Like, hand is such a vague title for anything,” piercings said to Colleen. “You expect us to get anywhere just giving us that?”

Colleen’s leg was pointed straight up. “Are you questioning me?”

“No! Not at all, miss, uhm-”

“I don’t think we can help you on that though,” default said. “Really really sorry.” He winced back, waiting to see what Colleen would do with one eye open.

Colleen gently let her leg fall back down. Away from the table. Softly onto the carpet. “Fine. I’ll believe you. For now. But if I find out you were hiding anything from me, I’ll be back. And even if you get a lock, it’s not gonna stop me. We clear?”

“Y- Yeah! Yes ma’am!”

“Good.” She turned and walked out of the office as cool as she could.

She was kicking herself in her mind though. That was a bust. Absolutely nothing gained. Whoever had called must’ve been using some random business as a cloak. But to what end, what was the goal?

In either case, Colleen probably didn’t have much time before security came at her. She peered down both lengths of the hallway, ready to make her way back to the elevator.

But something caught her eye.

To her left was a window that overlooked the city. It was a decent view actually, a wide view of Central Park. But before that, there was a tiny little scrap of paper taped to the window.

That caught Colleen’s interest. She walked over and gently pulled it off. It was thin, with a crease through the middle, and an arrow drawn in red ink. Closing it along the crease showed, printed on the outside, the insignia of the Steel Serpent, a red dragon without any wings.

She opened it back up, wondering what it meant.

She then realized what it meant. Colleen scrambled down to try and line it back up with the mark left by the tape. Tried to put it back where it had been.

If she looked at it dead on, the arrow pointed toward an older building up in Harlem. Or maybe… it was the one next to it?

Actually, close by where the arrow looked to be pointing, there was a weird shape on one of the rooftops. Unless someone was hosting some kind of light show up there-

From down the hallway she heard the ding of an elevator and heavy footsteps. That would be security. Better take the stairs down. She’d pass by reception and snatch her sword up as she left.

* * *

It was only just past 5 now, and already Club 1610 was already getting busy. It looked like people had come here minutes after getting off of work for the day. The DJ wasn’t even set up yet, it was just a generic club track being looped by itself. Not that anyone on the floor seemed to mind.

Luke Cage didn’t have trouble getting in. Maybe the bouncer recognized him, or maybe he just had a good face for the club scene.

He had a bit more trouble getting past the bouncer guarding VIP, he actually had to push that guy to the side and walk past him. A ruckus was being made. Things might go south because of that. But that was definitely an issue to deal with later.

Luke walked up to the only party currently in VIP. Three guys, five girls, the girls were all way out of the guys’ leagues, and only one of the guys looked like he knew how to handle that.

He looked to be the one in charge. He had the spread out, confident stance usually reserved for the guy calling the shots, while the other two guys lounged like every day civilians. Three of the girls at the table were focusing their attention almost solely on him. And considering how the night hadn’t even really begun yet, the number of empty glasses in front of him was a little shocking.

Purple suit jacket with a thin gold chain poking out one of the pockets, its twin draped loosely around his neck. Matching purple slacks, freshly pressed from the looks of things. A light pink turtleneck worn underneath. His hair was lengthy and straightened, coming to just above his shoulders, and his beard was bushy, popping out from and covering the lower half of his face.

He took notice of Luke as he approached.

“Luke motherfucking Cage.”

“I assume that you’re Stoneface.”

He turned to the closest of his arm candy. His voice dripped with slime and barely masked sarcasm. “Look at that, I’m famous.” Back to Luke. “Pull up a seat, it’s an honor to hold a meeting with Harlem’s Captain America. Now what can I do for you, sir?” He gave a mock salute and then started laughing.

“Just Luke is fine.” Luke pulled up a chair, directly across from him. “Word I’m hearing is, if I need to get my hands on some gear, you’re the guy to go through.”

“The word that you heard is correct, though I think you wouldn’t need to listen very closely to hear that. Notoriety and a low profile are exact opposites after all.”

The two guys at his side chuckled.

“I’ve heard of something special coming in recently. It’s piqued my curiosity.”

“Motherfucker, everything I sell is special. You’ll have to be more specific.”

“I’m not out of the game just yet. If what I’m looking for is something you don’t have, I think that makes us competitors, doesn’t it? I’ll keep my cards held close to my chest if you don’t mind.”

“And how much of a stink are you willing to raise over this.” Stoneface looked over Luke’s shoulder. He turned back to see security and backup climbing the stairs.

Luke stared Stoneface dead in the eyes. “Never more than what’s necessary.”

Stoneface gave a quick laugh to that. “I like that answer. That’s a good answer.” He waved security off. They took a second to make sure he was serious. And he sure as hell was. They went right back down.

“We’re talking recent, past week or two. Easy camouflage with high grade results. And a commitment to using one over the more standard available options.”

“And what’s a bonafide superhero need that kind of heat for? Ain’t you blow motherfuckers away by punching them?”

“I’m not a superhero. I’m just a guy trying to make Harlem what I think it should be. And I need equipment for that.”

“I don’t believe that for a second Luke.”

“Doesn’t matter what you believe. If you still don’t know what I’m talking about, then it’s clear that I’m wasting my time here.” Luke made to stand.

“You must think I’m fucking stupid.”

That gave him pause.

“You can call yourself whatever the fuck you like, but when Luke Cage rolls up on your operation, asking about some new illicit product, you know for damn sure he don’t want it for himself. You’re trying to shut me down. Whatever it is you’re looking for, you don’t like other people having it.”

Luke glared daggers at Stoneface, but he didn’t exactly have a retort.

“I ain’t spilling. Maybe I know what you’re talking about, maybe I don’t. But if you wanna fuck with my revenue stream, you’re gonna have to do a lot better than asking me politely. So make something of it, or get the fuck out my club.”

Luke stood suddenly. Both of Stoneface’s lackeys’ hands shot to their belts. Luke didn’t move though. He didn’t know what the move to make was. He could feel his hands balling at his side, but he wasn’t ready to throw them. Not yet.

“Fine,” he said. “But don’t come crawling back when I regain my seat.”

With that, he turned and left VIP. Stoneface called after him as he went down the stairs.

“And you are a superhero, Cage! Know how I know? I read your Wikipedia page! Your name’s as fake as mine!” Laughter. Clinking glasses. Shitty club music.

Whatever. Luke pushed past the bouncer a second time, a few of the people on the floor too. He just wanted to get out of this damn club as fast as possible.

* * *

Jessica Jones had asked around Kilgrave’s favorite restaurant, his favorite hotel, his favorite suit shop, his favorite coffee place, his favorite theater, and not a single person recognized the description of a British asshat in a purple suit. So she took a break to grab some food.

Jess got a sub from the first deli she could find, turkey with swiss. It was kind of bad. Kara asked politely for a free ham and salami with pepper jack and got exactly that. The two of them sat on a park bench, eating their sandwiches.

“So,” Kara asked. “Where to next?”

“What do you mean where to next.”

“I mean, where are we going to ask about a lead next?”

“We’ve checked every place Kilgrave ever expressed any amount of interest in and no one’s seen shit, how is that not enough for you.”

“Well, there’s one important lead that you definitely haven’t followed up on.”

Jess looked at her.

Kara just looked back expectantly.

Jessica sighed. Anything to get this over with, she supposed. “So you said that Kilgrave contacted you, what did he say.”

“Well he didn’t actually say anything to me specifically.” She dug through her pockets. “He had someone give me this.”

She unfolded it. It was a handwritten note.

‘kara kilgrave, I write to you in my limits. Because

I still have not recovered from my near death experience,

I cannot make the journey back to you and your mother.

But I need your help. Come find me in Manhattan. Roof.

If we combine our abilities, I know we can make a world

accepting of people like you and I. Your father.’

And at the bottom, there were a series of scratches.

‘| ˥ | VV | | /’

“You folded it wrong,” Jessica said.

“What’s that mean?”

“This is a really basic kind of puzzle, like something out of coloring book or something.” Her hands were already moving the paper, making new creases in it. “The opening is so stilted, and doesn’t capitalize your name, so that it has the right number of letters sticking up.”

“What are you talking about?”

Jessica manage to wrangle the paper so that the top half of the first line overlapped with the weird scratches at the bottom (and also dropped a diced onion on it, leaving a gross stain on one corner). When lined up correctly, the words made ‘141 W 119’.

“141 West 119th.”

“Oh, I never thought of that.”

“So that settles it.”

“You mean…” Her face lit up.

“Yep, your dad’s dead.”

Her face fell. “That’s not- What?”

“Look, Kilgrave doesn’t leave stupid riddles like this, he doesn’t make big plans about impacting the world, and he probably doesn’t care enough to even try and make the trip back to you.”

“Y- You don’t know that for sure.”

“Whoever sent you this is setting you up, probably setting me up too.”

Jessica shoved the rest of the sandwich in her mouth and stood up.

“Where are we going now?”

“You gave me my lead, I’m following it. I want to know who’s pulling my dick on this.”

141 W 119th Street was an apartment building on the south side of Harlem. A really old, really battered, really ratty, really gross apartment building. A building that made Jessica’s place look like the goddamn Ritz.

The front door and ground level windows were all boarded up, the name plaque had been taken off, probably a while ago by the look of the outline. Deductive powers led Jessica to believe that this meant the place was abandoned.

On the roof, when Jessica peered up and shielded her eyes from the sun, was a giant, purple, semi-transparent decahedron looking thing.

“Yep, this is the place,” she said.

“But how are we gonna get in?”

Jessica walked up, grabbed one of the boards from the front door, and snapped it off with a tug.

“Oh.”

Within the minute, she had the entrance cleared and was pushing inside. The doors creaked loudly as she stepped into the dark, dingy, cobweb infested foyer. Like something out of a bad scary movie. She paused for just a second to make sure she wasn’t about to step in something, and that one second was enough time for Kara to crash into her back and send them both tumbling in.

Jessica grunted from underneath the teenage girl’s weight.

“Sorry,” Kara muttered before getting up.

Jessica probably would’ve stood back up and cursed her out some more, but the floor interested her actually.

Calling it clean would be a hard sell, she would probably need to run this jacket through the wash when she got home, but it wasn’t a carpet of dust like it really should’ve been.

She got up and wandered around the foyer. The handrails on the stairs, the mailbox, the front desk, they were covered in dust so thick she could make a snow angel on it. The entirety of the floor though, nothing.

“Well, you coming or not?” Kara asked from above. Jessica looked up to see her standing at the top of the stairs, leaning over the banister to look down at her.

“I’m not going up there.”

“What? But the thing’s on the roof.”

Jessica shook her head. “That’s the bait.”

“What does that even mean?”

“The floor down here’s been swept up recently. Someone’s trying to hide their tracks. Whatever trap I just walked into, it’s going to be down here, not up there.”

Kara blinked. “Did- Did you see that thing? There’s no goddamn way that’s _just_ bait, that has to be something.”

Jessica largely ignored her and started exploring the foyer a bit more. First place she checked was behind the front desk, searching through drawers, lifting the whole desk to look under it, nothing. It was cleared out. She ducked her head into a broom closet, then immediately ducked right back out, coughing a lung up at the rank smell of some ancient cleaning supplies that somehow _didn’t_ get cleared out. Probably wasn’t anything in there right? What human being could survive it?

The next door she tried, however, was locked. That piqued her curiosity. She twisted the knob a little harder and shattered the mechanism, and the door swung open.

In front of her was a set of concrete stairs leading down. Must be a basement or maybe the boiler room. No windows down there, not even the boarded up kind that still let light in through the cracks. It was pitch fucking dark.

Jessica took out her phone and turned on the flashlight before heading down.

“Jones? Jones!” Kara scampered down the stairs to catch up with her. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“Just give me a little extra light.”

Kara fumbled in the dark behind her before a new beam of light shot down the stairs. Hers swung wildly, trying to cover every inch of the stairwell by itself. Every time it swung to a corner and spotted a spider web or something, there was a quiet gasp or groan or eep.

At the bottom of the stairs was a second door. Testing it at first, this one wasn’t locked, though when she opened it, it also didn’t creak like the front door had.

“Seriously Jones, I don’t want to be here.”

“Then leave.”

In here was a single, large room with no other exits. Looked like half the room was used for storage space with a couple rusting filing cabinets and the faint outline of where some crates used to be, while the other half was dedicated to a series of piping, all leading to a large tank with a control box to the side. Support beams sectioned out the room in rigid rows.

And despite her protests, Kara’s beam still swung around the room, checking the ceiling for monsters or whatever.

Jessica looked over the boiler. It was old and rusting and worn down, but it didn’t look off in any way except for being a really shit boiler.

Back on the other side of the room, she checked all the drawers of the filing cabinets, some of them she nearly had to break to get open, but they were all empty.

Light switch? Jessica tried in vain to flip it on and off, hoping it would do anything, but this place probably hadn’t had power in years.

There was a loud crash behind her. Jessica swung around.

Kara shielded her eyes as the flashlight was suddenly in her face. She stood next to the power breaker, the door to which was no longer on the control box, but was now rattling to a stop on the ground next to her.

“I just touched it. I don’t- can you please stop shining that in my face?”

Jessica let the beam of light fall to the floor. Kara more or less disappeared into the darkness, but her own beam of light still gave away her position.

Jess swung her light around to continue looking, and something caught her eye. At the base of one of the pillars was a black blob that wasn’t quite right as a shadow. Putting her flashlight on it helped her make out the shape a little more, a black fabric bag wrapped around the base.

She moved her flashlight to check the bases of the other pillars around the room, and they all had similar packages on them. There was one under the boiler, and even looking up she could see them at the top of the pillars too.

Jessica approached the nearest one and knelt down to look at it closer. It was one pouch, closed by velcro, over a square shape. She ripped open the top and pulled out what was inside.

A brick-shaped device, sleek black plastic, with one blinking red light above a green bulb that was off, a series of wires coming out the side, and a very professional logo on the front.

‘HAMMER/ADVANCED/WEAPON SYSTEMS’.

“Oh shit.” Jessica put the brick back in the bag and stood back up. “Oh shit.”

“What’s going on?” It was Kara’s turn to shine her flashlight directly into Jessica’s face.

Jessica didn’t waste time saying anything, she ran forward and clumsily grabbed Kara around the midsection, hauling her up and towards the stairs. She made it halfway up before she was even able to feel Kara struggle against her grip.

“Jones. Jones!”

She’d made it to the foyer and was halfway to the door.

“Jones, stop!”

Jessica dug her heels in and skid against the wood floor. She slammed to a halt as quickly as she could.

“Put me down.”

She complied without a second thought.

Kara looked up at her, brows furrowed and breathing heavily.

“You weren’t- You-” She rubbed her face and chewed on her glossy lip. Ran her fingers through her curly hair. Then finally pointed to Jessica. “Don’t move.”

Jessica’s muscles locked in place. Whatever was down there in the basement, it suddenly became infinitely less important than making sure not a single one of her muscles so much as twitched. She stood there, still as she could force herself to be, still as a goddamn marble statue, as Kara turned and ran out the front door, leaving her alone.

* * *

Oakridge Apartments was closed. It had been shut down at some point during the blip, probably when people moved into nicer apartments that were suddenly vacated. It still wasn’t hard to find the building that had once been that.

With a leap, a flip, and a roll, Matt Murdock landed on the roof. Two things of immediate note. One being the big 18-sided glass case situated in the dead center. The other was that someone was approaching, also jumping between rooftops. From this distance, it was hard to tell, but given the sword strapped to her back, he figured it was probably Colleen.

Matt shifted his focus down into the building, trying to get the layout and pick out anyone still hanging around. There was a lot of static though, the amount of dust in the air made it hard to feel around. He could tell where the rooms were, but everything in them was a blurry, lumpy mess. Still, no movement to speak of, it felt pretty empty.

Colleen vaulted over the lip of the neighboring building’s roof and landed with the crunch of gravel. She paused when she actually noticed Matt.

“Fancy meeting you here,” he said as he turned to face her.

“Not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing, that we both ended up at the same place.”

“Building’s empty. If the Hand is here, they’re deep underground.”

“Or it’s just a drop point.”

Matt nodded. “Yeah. That’s likely.”

“But then what the hell is this thing?”

“That’s the question isn’t it?”

Matt approached the odd structure. With one knuckle, he rapped lightly against the glass. What had been a nearly opaque space within suddenly lit up for him as the sound bounced around the tight, enclosed space. The inside was mostly empty, but with dozens of cables and wires coiling around the base, plugged into ports along the ridges of the shape.

“Looks complicated, whatever it is.”

Matt frowned. Something was off. “No… No, these wires don’t lead anywhere. There’s no current running through it.”

“So… what does that mean?”

“Could be unfinished. Maybe a prototype. Or it’s…”

Matt’s ear twitched. Something in the basement just went beep.

“Decoy.”

“What?”

“The building’s about to explode.”

_“What?”_

Something else caught Matt’s ear. It was hard to hear through the thick layers of dust and beneath the sounds of the city around him, but in the foyer, he thought he could hear someone’s heartbeat speed up.

“There’s someone down there.”

He moved for the door, Colleen shifted to stop him.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Matt you literally just said the building was about to explode.”

He put a hand on her shoulder to push her away, she shoved it off her, then used it to yank him in close for a flat palm to the sternum.

He coughed. “I have to do something.”

“I’m not letting you end up buried under a building a second time.”

Colleen threw out another palm to Matt’s face, he batted her arm to the side and followed through with an elbow, she blocked the strike with her hand and countered with a straight punch, he grabbed her by the wrist, twisted, turned, and yanked the arm over his shoulder, she dug her heel into the back of his knee, he lashed out with an elbow back, she ducked it and kicked towards his face, he let go of her arm to grab her leg and pushed her back, she fell back with a handspring and landed on her feet with her sword drawn, he had his batons out by the time she landed, and-

The entire building shook. Both of them were thrown off balance.

Matt could hear that he was out of time.

* * *

Talking to Stoneface had been a bust, and just like that, Luke Cage was out of leads. It was getting late, and there wasn’t much he could do now. But he didn’t want to just quit and go home either. So Luke did neither. He started walking home but it was more meandering than anything. He was wandering around, letting himself get lost, thinking over anything that could help him and coming up with nothing.

He crossed over into Harlem, let the familiar sights and vibes comfort him. It was the little details that made it feel like home. The way the sign for Sam’s Italian hung just a little bit too far to the right. The initials carved into the bricks on the corner of Sutherland and Jackson Law Offices, he still had no idea who they could belong to. The old, worn down planks, marked by more than a few taggers, of the boarded up Oakridge Apartments.

Wait. Luke looked back.

Someone had pulled the boards off Oakridge’s front doors. They hadn’t been subtle about it either.

Luke looked around, saw a lot of people going about their day, and curiosity got the better of him.

“Hello,” he called out as he pushed the doors open.

He thought maybe they’d still be on the ground floor, he wasn’t expecting her to be staring right back at him though.

Luke’s brow furrowed. “Jessica?”

She stood there, muscles tensed, still as a statue, but staring a hole through his skull with an intense look.

“Help,” she breathed.

“W-”

The entire building suddenly shook beneath his feet. He glanced around, trying to figure out what was going on. A heavy rumbling came from underneath him, in the basement.

With a click and a roar, the cracking of wooden boards being violently snapped, a massive fireball blew up from beneath the floor. It was quickly followed by a second, identical explosion.

The building was shaking even harder now. Chunks of the ceiling began to break off and fall, breaking up the floorboards even harder.

Through it all, Jessica Jones didn’t move a muscle.

Luke was lost and confused, he didn’t know what he’d stumbled on or why any of it was happening. But working off of pure adrenaline as he was, he did what his first instinct usually was in situations like these. He ran forward and tackled Jessica to the ground, covering her body with his. A plank of wood fell and smashed against the back of his head. A chunk of stone fell and slammed between his shoulder blades. A support beam toppled and pinned him down by the small of his back.

The building quickly collapsed down on top of them.

* * *

Curtis Elkins was a prison guard. He worked at the mid-level prison for violent felons who didn’t require maximum level security, Conway Penitentiary. It wasn’t a safe job. It wasn’t a fun job. It payed well, probably for the above reasons. Sometimes Curtis thought about branching out, doing something else, something a little safer, but usually he failed to find anyone else who wanted him. So he kept doing what he was doing.

This was one of those times where he really wanted to be doing anything else.

The job, on paper, was simple. Routine even. A bus full of new prisoners was coming in, he would escort them from the bus to processing. Not even all the way to their cells. Curtis had done this hundreds of times before and he’d do it innumerable times in the future.

But this time was different. He’d somehow ended up with a freak to keep track of.

The rumor was it was three freaks, but Curtis had done his research. Two of them just had special weapons, like Iron Man, without those they were powerless, in fact less than powerless. One of them was a junkie, the other was a guy with no arms. Less dangerous than the average inmate here.

But the third guy, the third guy was a freak.

There was supposed to be some special superprison for these guys, Curtis had read about it in the news, but apparently this one just wasn’t bad enough to wind up there. So he was here, at Conway, under Curtis’ watch, at least until he went through processing.

The bus pulled up. Curtis took a deep breath.

His orders this time were special. While watching the prisoners, he had to make sure that the freak did nothing with his hands. Nothing at all. Even so much as wave a finger, and Curtis was supposed to take him down. He was already getting ready. He didn’t want to fight one of those freaks, but if you shot one they would go down like any other person. Right? Probably. But maybe not. The big green guy ate bullets, Iron Man was bulletproof, Cap had his shield, all the freaks always had a way around guns.

The bus parked, the door on its side open, and a steady stream of orange jumpsuits and handcuffs began trudging out, escorted by more of Curtis’ coworkers.

All of them were normal looking. Curtis would know the freak when he saw him. There passed the junkie. There passed the guy with no arms. And then at the very end, there was the freak. Chalk white skin with a big, black circle in the center of his face. Curtis watched his hands. They were as white as his face, and had their own little black spots. But they didn’t move, Curtis made sure of that. As the line marched forward, Curtis followed at the end, his eyes glued to the freak’s hands. One twitch, all it would take was one twitch.

Curtis wasn’t sure whether he wanted or dreaded the excuse, he just wanted whatever would get this freak out of his hands as soon as possible.


	3. Rehearsal

Crowds were gathering in Harlem. And why wouldn’t they? A building had just fallen. Not only fallen, it had _exploded_. Police were already swerving onto the scene, pushing people, keeping the crowd clear of the wreckage. A fire truck and ambulance followed them quickly, workers rushing out, orders were barked, groups of them split into different sectors for different jobs. Get statements from the crowd, check for survivors, get equipment in to start moving the rubble.

As they were just beginning to look over the wreckage, a hand broke the surface. A calloused, dark skinned hand punched through a slab of stone at the top of the pile.

Right next to it, a pair of skinny, pale hands also shot up and tossed away a hunk of metal support. Two figures stood from the pile of rubble. A tall, black man in a hoodie, and a tired looking white woman in a leather jacket. They both took deep, pained, heavy breaths, but aside from their clothes being scuffed and torn in places, neither seemed harmed in any way.

The woman was the first to speak.

“Fuck my shit.”

* * *

John Ohnn was wearing handcuffs.

That was pretty funny.

Or at least so he thought, it was funny, he needed his hands to access the full extent of his space manipulation, or rather, no, he probably didn’t, but no matter how much practice he got in it was hard to shake those human instincts, that the hands are what you use to work with your surroundings, that you’re bound by how you can shape the world around you by your digits.

Handcuffs, no, handcuffs didn’t matter, or rather they shouldn’t matter, no they didn’t, of course they didn’t, John was beyond being restrained like that. Beyond, yes, probably? Probably, yes.

No. No he wasn’t beyond it because he’d always been restrained and he was still restrained, this was no different from Germany, that was a good way to think about it. More of the same, routine restraint.

Routine restraints. Two men flanked him on either side, hands twitching by their weapons. John had received the order not to try anything about three times now. He could see them shake, see their hearts jump every time John tilted his head. They were scared of him, and they probably had good reason to.

Interesting point of order, John did not have eyes anymore, and so what he did was technically not seeing. Though, it was seeing, or, no, rather it was something approximate to seeing, that was probably the best way to phrase it, it was something approximate. John didn’t see, though he still took in color and texture and electromagnetic wavelengths, but the information that was taken in, taken in by the holes that had been left on him, it wasn’t exactly seeing, or it was, but rather,

John didn’t see light anymore. He saw space.

Not space as in stars and planets of course, but space as in the relation of objects in a physical area. He saw the two men beside him and he saw the rhythmic thumping of their chests as their hearts beat, slightly faster than standard pace, and he saw the lines and lines of stitching in their blue shirt on which he saw dozens of light splotches of foreign substances, old stains that no longer had a color of their own but stayed in the fabric nonetheless and he saw the individual pieces of the guns kept at their sides, saw the slight gaps where springs fit and parts slid and the magazines with 10 individual bullets loaded within and he saw in there the gunpowder packed into the base of the shells down to the grain and- well, if he wanted to John could see the objects that made up objects and the space between them, if he wanted to he could see the individual particles and atoms that made up all of these but he tried not to. He tended to get lost trying to go that deep.

Normally John could see more but to see he needed holes, he needed holes in more places to see in more places, but he couldn’t place holes so he could only see from himself and it was very restrictive.

The men on either side of him led him to a room, a cell, it was an unusual cell though. You think of a cell, you think of a prison cell specifically, what you think of is a room with basic facilities and bars across the front. Or perhaps an even smaller room with a solid metal door.

This was neither of those things. This was a room with basic facilities, dirty and dingy as the rest, but the front, the door, was a solid sheet of reinforced plastic. See-through. No, two pieces of plastic. They met in the middle and interlaced and locked, below the ground were small wheels that could roll in grooves, when they rolled part of the door probably rolled as well. Slid. The door wouldn’t roll that’s ridiculous. The wheels rolled, the door slid.

The two men stepped forward to a terminal on each side. Each one pulled a small card attached to their belts and pressed them onto some form of electronic scanner and electricity hummed and the door unlocked and slid open and he was shoved inside. John stumbled, but did not fall, into the cell. The man on his right then spun him around again, pulled out a set of keys, and undid John’s handcuffs. He pulled the handcuffs back and clipped them to the back of his belt, right side, just above the pocket, then stepped back as the other man slid the cell doors back closed and the two of them pulled out their cards once again and locked the two sheets of plastic into place.

The two men gave John one last once over and turned and walked away. From this side of the wall, John could not hear them speak, but he could still see them speak, he could still see the vibrations of the words as they rose in throat, he could see the shifting of the space between them. One of the men had turned to the other and had said “Why’s he the one who gets the throne room, huh?”

The other one scratched the back of his head. “I mean he’s only here on minor assault, right?”

“Not even charged yet. But we still gotta hold him.”

“Bull fucking shit, man. Don’t the superfreaks like him go to Stark’s fancy gulag?”

“I mean he’s barely even done anything. I guess he’s not-” and then they were out of range, and John couldn’t see them anymore.

John took a step forward and curiously rapped a knuckle against the plastic. It was strong stuff, he could see the layers of protection built within the material.

Someone clearly wanted to make this a challenge for him.

* * *

Jessica Jones had been taken in by the police. Again.

She didn’t even need to be led to the questioning room. She knew the way by now.

It still took an hour for a detective to actually show up. Jessica was getting ready to stand up and find her way right back out of the precinct when Misty Knight finally stepped in.

“Really,” Jessica asked. “We’re still doing this shit.”

“Believe it or not,” Misty said as she took a seat. “I’m actually very busy today.” She started sorting through papers on the table. “You know this is actually the room we use for questioning suspects, not witnesses.”

“I figure it’s where you want me anyways.”

“Is there a reason to suspect you?”

“I don’t know, is there.”

Misty sighed. “There were only two people in the building when it blew up. You, and one Luke Cage, you know each other.”

Jessica didn’t say anything.

“Witnesses say that Luke ran in as the building was exploding. But you were spotted going in several minutes beforehand. With a second party. I don’t think you did it, Jones. But I do think you know something.”

“Sorry, I really don’t. Was in the building. It exploded. That’s it.”

“Who was the girl with you?”

“A client.”

“She got a name?”

“She does, and I have something called client confidentiality.”

“And I have something called obstruction of justice.”

“The case has nothing to do with this, what you’re doing is bluffing to invade the privacy of an uninvolved citizen.”

“Find anything interesting inside the building?”

“Not particularly, not until it blew up on me.”

“Did you know it was going to?”

“How would I know that.”

“Witnesses also say your client came running out of the building just a minute before it went up. Why was that?”

“That’s related to my case. Not yours.”

“So it wasn’t cause she or you knew anything about the abandoned building you were hanging out in being moments away from being demolished?”

“I already told you-”

There was a knock on the door, both Jessica and Misty turned to glare at it.

It creaked open and, unmistakably, in poked in the head of Matt Murdock, ruffled brown hair and dark lensed glasses and all.

“Oh no,” Jessica said.

“Ms. Jones, Detective Knight.” He held his hand out.

“I see you never bothered to upgrade your legal counsel.” Misty didn’t take it.

Matt awkwardly dropped the hand and shuffled into the room.

“Detective Knight, do you have any evidence that my client was anything other than a victim in this case?”

She sighed. “No.”

“And did you have any more pertinent questions to ask her at this time?”

“Don’t believe that I do,” Misty said through grit teeth.

“Then I insist that she be released and allowed to recover. I’m sure the experience has been very taxing on her. A normal human would be in the hospital right now.”

Misty pinched the bridge of her nose. “Fine. Go. I will have some follow up questions, but we’ll get to that later.”

Jessica stood up and walked out the door the second she was free. Matt was left to catch up.

“Technically speaking you can’t be charged with obstruction of justice just from refusing to answer an officer’s questions,” he said. “Lying to a detective on the other hand...”

Jessica looked back to make sure Misty, or any cops for that matter, weren’t around to hear that. The coast was clear. Matt probably knew that actually.

“Am I getting this lecture from the guy who dresses up in a Halloween costume and beats up criminals at night.”

“Not a lecture, just something I noticed coming in.”

“Yeah, great, hey, what are you doing here.”

“Getting you out as fast as possible mostly.”

They stepped out the front doors of the precinct, out to the night air. Jessica pulled out her phone to call an Uber.

“There’s things we need to talk about, I figured it’d be best to discuss them somewhere with some privacy,” Matt said. “Also there’s a taxi coming round the corner right now.”

“Oh, shit.” Jessica ran forward, swung her arms wildly to stop the cab, and when that didn’t work she stepped in front of it and had to help it come to a stop before hitting her.

The driver cursed her out from behind the wheel while the passenger already in the backseat looked shocked and a little horrified.

Jessica looked back to Matt with a scowl.

“Sorry.” The cab pulled around Jessica and continued on. “This next one’s actually empty.”

Jessica flagged down the next cab to round the corner, this one stopped for her on its own. She and Matt climbed into the back. Cheesy 80s rock was blasting from the radio. Jessica gave the driver her address and settled into the crusty seats as best she could.

The two of them sat quietly in the backseat. Watched the dingy lights of New York pass. Listened to Styx or the Stones or whoever sing about a girl he likes.

“So are you planning on following me home,” Jessica asked.

“Following you to your office.”

“Which is where I live.”

“I didn’t make that choice.”

“Don’t be a fucking creep, Murdock.”

“I need to discuss your _case_ with you.”

“What do you know about my case.”

“Nothing. That’s why I need to discuss it.”

“Sorry, office closes at 7. Try again tomorrow.”

“It’s important, Jones.”

“It is important. It’s fucking dire even. So the less people involved the better.”

The cab pulled up beside her building. She cracked open her wallet and saw not enough to pay the driver. Matt spotted her an extra 10 and the two got out. Jess pushed inside. Matt kept following her.

“Look,” he said. “I don’t know what you think is going on here, but it involves more than just you.”

“What the fuck does that mean.”

She mashed the elevator call button, accidentally cracked the glass. Not like anyone would notice.

“The girl who was with you, your client, she might be related to something else going on right now.”

The elevator door went ding and opened. Jess went in. Hit the button for floor 5. Matt followed her.

“She’s definitely involved with something,” she said. “I’m going to figure out what that is. But if you don’t already know who she is, Murdock, then you’re not involved. And you’re not going to be.”

The elevator went ding again and let Jess and Matt out onto the fifth floor. Down the hall from her office.

“You’re not the only person to show up at that building when you did, Jones.” Maybe if Jessica walked fast enough she could get through the door and lock it behind her before he could catch up. No, wait, wasn’t he a ninja or something. “And you aren’t the only person who was attacked recently. I can’t say for certain that there’s a connection, but that’s why I need to know what happened, so I can be sure.”

“You want to be sure – wait – who got attacked. What?”

Jessica opened the door to her apartment and standing inside were Luke Cage and Colleen Wing. Suddenly everything made sense.

“Oh god no.”

“Don’t look too happy to see me,” Luke said.

“No.” Jessica felt all the energy leave her as she plodded across the room. “No. No way. We’re not doing this shit again.” She flopped into her chair. “How did you even get in here.”

“Door was unlocked.”

Jessica patted her pockets. She’d forgotten her keys when she left.

“Yeah, we were gonna,” Colleen said, “we were gonna wait outside in the hall, but the place was open and that would just feel awkward, you know?”

She laughed a little, probably hoping that Jessica would join in. Instead Jessica pulled out her bottle of bourbon and a shotglass and began pouring.

“Should we, um, leave?” Luke asked.

“No,” she sighed.

“Are you going to hear me out?” Matt asked.

“Just give me a moment.”

Jessica poured her bourbon until the glass threatened to spill over her desk. And then she chugged it.

She slapped the glass back onto her desk. “Hit me.”

Luke immediately went into it. “Yesterday, within hours of each other, all three of us were attacked.”

“Attacked by enhanced people,” Colleen added.

“Enhanced like people with powers,” Jessica asked.

“They weren’t strictly all enhanced,” Matt said. “But basically.”

“What kind of powers.”

“My guy,” Luke said. “Had boots that let him move really fast. His guy,” he pointed to Matt. “Was opening up portals. And her guy,” to Colleen, “had gun hands.”

“Pft.” Jessica couldn’t hold herself back on that one. “What.”

“He had these like,” Colleen gestured to nothing to try and get her point across. “These prosthetic hands that turned into guns-”

“Look, that’s not really important right now,” Matt said. “The three of us were attacked yesterday. They all got arrested, but then after the fact we were given dangerous sounding information that led us to the building that exploded with you in it. If that was an attempt on your life, you may be involved in whatever’s going on here as well.”

Jessica leaned back in her chair. Looked at the three of them. In her office. At close to midnight.

Took in what they said. Some kind of conspiracy. Or at least a plot. Someone targeting the four of them. It didn’t necessarily have to be for the obvious reason, but the obvious reason was the most obvious for a reason.

She thought about Kara. That hairbrained scheme with the puzzle note and the decoy on the roof and the bombs in the basement. That wasn’t something a teenager would be able to cook up, wasn’t something a teenager would think to cook up. If Kara wanted something from Jessica she could take it without any problems. So if Jessica asked if there was something else behind all this, the obvious answer would be yes, of course there was.

So Jessica took in a deep breath.

“Kilgrave.”

Colleen and Matt looked towards her, waiting for more information. Luke however, was immediately on his feet, concern all over his face.

“Seriously? Is he...”

“Kilgrave had a kid. She has the same powers as him. She brought me to the building, and she... had me stay inside when it went up.”

Luke put a gentle hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

“Kilgrave?” Colleen asked. “Who’s Kilgrave?”

“He’s a...” Luke had to pause to choose his words. “He’s an enhanced person.”

“He’s dead,” Jess added. “Been dead for a while.”

“He had some kind of mind control. Whenever he told you to do something, you always had to do it. No matter what.”

“So his kid,” Matt said. “She told you to stay in the building. Even though you both knew it was about to explode.”

Jess nodded.

Matt gave her a quiet moment. Probably out of respect or something.

Jess didn’t really give a shit. Her mind was already pushing through the fog of alcohol and forming a strategy.

“I think it’s safe to say,” he eventually said. “That you’re in the same boat as us then.”

“Yeah,” Jessica sighed. “Yeah I think so.”

“So can you tell us exactly what happened today?”

Jessica gave a huff then pulled out her laptop. If she was going to do this she might as well do this right.

“This morning, the girl showed up at my office wanting to hire me. She said she wanted me to find her dad, I wasn’t having it, she showed off her powers, that dragged me in. She told me that Kilgrave was alive, that he had somehow faked his death.”

“How is that possible though,” Luke asked. “Didn’t you snap his neck?”

“I’m sorry, you did what,” Matt said.

Jessica grimaced. “Self-defense. Police know. Can we not do this right now?”

Matt cleared his throat and fixed his tie. “Sorry. Continue.”

“Right.” While Jessica talked she began pulling up some of her _favorite_ websites. “Well I didn’t buy it at first, but I got concerned. The girl, Kara, she could make you see things that weren’t there, so I didn’t- But her powers seemed to be slightly different from Kilgrave’s anyways. So I don’t know.” What was the address again? Right. Puzzle bullshit. “So I told her to fuck off but she followed me around anyways and told me she had a lead on where he might be. I just wanted to check in with places he usually goes to. It- There’s just nothing, he’s not here, no one’s seen him. Kara gives me a note that he supposedly wrote, it’s got some dumb bullshit puzzle in it that Kilgrave would never do, but it leads me to the building.”

“Hey, what are you doing?” Colleen asked.

“I’m looking something up.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“...At the building – right, important shit – so there’s a fucking big glass purple thing on the roof.”

“Yeah. We saw that too.”

“And that was obviously some kind of bait, so instead I looked around the lobby. Place was a dust factory, hadn’t been touched in years, but the floor had been swept recently. Whoever put the bombs there and set all this up probably didn’t want to leave tracks. I go into the basement, I find the whole place strapped down with bombs. Hammer Advanced Weapon Systems.”

“Hammertech?” Luke said. “Well... if this person is using military grade weaponry, I have a pretty good idea who he got ‘em from.”

“Right, that’s one way to track them down. Another would be to get information from the guys who attacked you.”

“That’ll probably be hard,” Matt said. “They’re likely in a penitentiary by now.”

Jessica stopped in her typing for a second. “Didn’t this happen yesterday.”

“Yeah, what are you talking about?” Colleen added.

Matt looked between the three of them. Well, turned his head between the three of them. “There was a New York state law passed, during the blip, couple other states adopted something similar, based on some of the propositions in the Sokovia Accords. If an enhanced person is charged with a violent crime in the state of New York, they can be held pending trial in a prison instead of a jail for the extra security.”

“What the fuck,” Jessica said.

“There was a lot of panicky law making after the snap. We’re still wading through the legal mess.”

“Fucking bureaucracy. You know _I’m_ an enhanced person who gets arrested for a lot of violent crimes.”

“I didn’t write the law.”

“Guys,” Luke stepped between them. “Look, even if we could get to the guys who attacked us, Misty Knight’s spent the better part of the last day and a half trying to do just that, and she got nothing. We’re better off following the lead about the bombs.”

“Is that what you were looking up?” Colleen asked.

“No. I wanted to know who owns the building. They might know something about whoever was going in to set this up. If they didn’t do it themselves.”

“Makes sense.” She nodded. “Who is it then?”

“Some guy named Quentin Beck.”

The three of them stared back at her.

“...What.”

“Quentin Beck,” Colleen asked. “Like- Like Quentin Beck as in Mysterio?”

“Who the fuck is Mysterio.”

“The soldier from another dimension?”

Jessica’s face flattened out.

“Mysterio was a superhero who showed up half a year ago,” Matt said. “He fought some giant monsters, there was footage that made it look like he was killed by Spider-Man.”

“Spider-Man killed him?” Luke said. “The hell? Ain’t he just a kid?”

“I don’t know.” Matt huffed. “I don’t know. The whole thing’s been a goddamn media circus since it happened. Some Stark representative says this, some angry pundit says that – I try to keep an ear on this stuff cause there’s a lot of new laws coming out that involve superhumans, but honestly I cannot follow this case in particular.”

“But he is from another dimension,” Colleen said. “Pretty sure.”

“There’s not- No-” Jessica had trouble getting it out, the thought was so stupid. “Nobody’s from some other dimension.”

Colleen shifted her sword and looked at the ground. “K’un-Lun’s in another dimension.”

“Guys, can we focus here?” Luke stepped in. “Regardless of whether the story makes sense or not, what matters now is why his name showed up here.”

“It was probably used as a fake name,” Jess said. “Like checking into a skeevy hotel under Harry Truman.” She looked up at Colleen. “Unless you think the dimension hopping wizard stopped by Harlem to purchase some property.”

“Seems like a bad idea for a fake name,” Matt said.

“Why’s that?” Colleen asked.

“Because identity theft is a crime.”

“Also he’s dead,” Jess added.

“Yeah, mostly that.” Matt nodded. “With what... the public knows about Quentin Beck, with no known will and no relatives in this dimension-”

“God,” Jessica groaned.

“-the state will probably be reclaiming the property to auction off.”

“They didn’t think to do that before now?” Luke asked.

“Guess not,” Jess said.

“I don’t think anyone would even notice,” Colleen said. “Old, run down building like that? Who’s gonna come asking?”

“But now that it’s the scene of an attempted murder-” said Luke.

“-and an illegal demolition-” said Matt.

“-now it’s on the city’s radar,” Jessica finished.

Colleen clapped her hands together. “Good job team. So uh, what do we do now.”

Jessica gave a sigh, mixed with a bit of groan. And she closed her laptop. “It’s too late for this. I’m going to go pass out. I’ll follow up on this lead tomorrow.”

“I’ll help you out.”

Jessica sagged. “You don’t have to do that.”

“Don’t worry about it. I need to get to the bottom of this too.”

All of the energy was gone from Jessica. There was no more fight left in her. “Right. Sure. Whatever. See you then.”

“I’ll get back in contact with... with my contact,” Luke said. “He should know who’s been buying Hammertech bombs. Only issue is getting him to tell me.”

“We’ll see what happens,” Matt said. “It’s been a long day for all of us I think.”

“Amen to that.” Jessica stood up and immediately moved to her bedroom. “You let yourselves in. Let yourselves back out.” Then slammed the door behind her.

* * *

John lay in his bunk. Flat on his back. Was he asleep? He wasn’t sure. Did he sleep anymore? Sometimes. Did he need to sleep anymore? Wasn’t sure.

Sometimes instead of sleeping, John would fall into the holes in his head. It was a very meditative state, not true subconsciousness, the closest John could approximate, this state was the closest he’d ever come to being what he was truly _supposed_ to be, what the Tesseract had made him. It was a state where he wasn’t John the almost-person looking through holes in space, it was when he became holes in space anchored by- centered around a body.

See, see, when John entered into this state he could truly, truly feel his consciousness, or his subconscious mind, leaving his body, leaving the confinement of his brain and actually entering the holes in space. Actually becoming space.

It was very, uhm, actualizing. It felt like that was the being he wanted to work towards being.

So was John doing that right now? No, not really, but he was trying to. Or, no, it was hard to try and enter a meditative state, you had to stop trying, stop focusing, fall into yourself, and that was hard. He settled into the thin cot he’d been given, stopped focusing on the weight and the position of his limbs, tried to relax them until they grew numb, until he couldn’t feel the hand that wrapped itself around his ankle-

John was suddenly very aware of his very human body. He fell to the hard, tiled ground, his skull bounced off of it in fact, there was a very loud crash and he was splayed out, only barely pushing himself up.

There was a broad strike across his stomach. He curled up on himself.

John could see what was happening. It had taken him by surprise but even without any light, John could see the movement in space in the dark. Two prison guards cornered him against his cot, batons drawn. One whacked him across the head. The other slammed into his shoulder.

John tried to lift a hand and draw, draw a circle. What could he do with one hole? There was nothing, but he tried anyways, it was all he could do.

The guard lifted his boot and stomped down on his hand before he could even start.

This was a reminder of how very still human John was. On instinct, on split reaction, he cried out. The voice didn’t even come from his mouth, there was nothing natural about the methods through which John could speak, let alone yell, yet that is what John did anyways.

“Try that again and I’ll take your fingers,” the one guard growled.

“Hey, Curtis, come on, ain’t that enough,” his friend said.

Curtis responded with a huff. He gave John one last whack in the temple. Then he tucked his baton back into his belt. The two of them walked out, walked to the door of John’s cell and pressed their cards to readers on the inside of the cell and opened it! It was open!

This should’ve been his chance, but John couldn’t move, couldn’t force his pathetic body to get up and move or do anything. He was hurting. This was pain. His whole body was in pain.

He lay there, all he could do was lay there, on the ground, breathing heavily, sweating grossly, wanting nothing more than to not be trapped within his body at this moment. Wanting nothing more than to be holes in space.

* * *

Colleen Wing woke up bright and early, ready to get cracking on this whole Mysterio business. It was one thing to know that the building was filed under the ownership of Quentin Beck, but Colleen wanted to know just how many buildings Mysterio ‘owned’. There were ways to find it out, ways beyond brute forcing it to find the name of the owner of every piece of property in New York, but the best ways Colleen had at her disposal was to use the connections that she had.

Which means she had to call Danny.

But first she should probably wake up a little. Colleen brewed herself some coffee, did her morning stretches. Didn’t help anyone to tackle the day if you weren’t in tip top shape.

But actually, while she was warmed up, she might as well do her full daily set. Calisthenics to keep her muscles ready for anything, meditation to keep her mind sharp, some basic sword practice so she wouldn’t be caught off guard, hell let’s do some hand to hand reps as well, what would happen if she got unarmed in a fight? And now it was getting close to noon, and she was sweaty and thoroughly tired, so she heated up some leftovers to have lunch. Couldn’t hunt down a bomber on an empty stomach.

Was she putting this off? She was putting this off wasn’t she. Colleen frowned into her pad thai. This was the easy part. This wasn’t fighting off an army of ninja, or trying not to get perforated by a madman with machine guns for hands, this was calling a – friend, and asking him to look up something in a database.

Colleen rubbed her face, forced the blood back up into her head again. This was the easy part. Okay.

She pulled out her phone, pulled up her contacts, and called.

It rang. Went through a few rings. Maybe he wouldn’t pick up, it wasn’t like he wasn’t a busy person after all.

“Hey Colleen,” Danny said.

Shit. “Hey Danny.” She probably shouldn’t be upset about this. “How’s it, uh, going over there? What weird corner of the world are you in this week?”

“Still in Tokyo.”

“Really? You ever find that um – that – the person?”

“Phaedra, yes. Turns out I was right in thinking she was trying to reform the Hand. Felt good to put a stop to that before it could get going.”

“Yeah,” Colleen sighed. “I can... imagine. But that- that’s great. Is that the only rumblings you’ve heard about them, possibly reforming over there though?”

“That’s all I’ve managed to catch. Why, have you heard anything?”

Colleen bit her lip. “No, just, you know, they’re an organization that’s hard to kill by design. Always a little bit worried.”

“I get that. Is that why you called then?”

“Oh, no. I needed to ask you something.”

“Shoot.”

“I’m- Me and Jess and- we’re working this case. I’m trying to find out all the property in New York that’s owned by a Quentin Beck.”

“The soldier from another dimension?”

“That’s the one.”

“Let me wake up Ward, he’d know how to find that information.”

“Oh. What time is it over there?”

“Just a little past midnight.”

Before Colleen could apologize, Danny pulled away from the phone. She could hear muttering on the other end. Had to wait this one out.

She recognized Ward’s voice at least, croaking and dripping with sarcasm, even when she couldn’t even actually hear what he was saying, she heard that much. A little added bleariness. At the very least he didn’t sound mad, so that was good.

“Okay,” Danny said as he came back. “I can look this up, but it’s gonna take me a minute. I’ll text you the places when I get them.”

“Yeah, that works fine.”

There was a brief pause. Colleen was getting ready to say bye and hang up.

“Actually, um,” Danny started. “I think we’re probably gonna head back to the city, pretty soon.”

“Oh.” That one took a second to really sink in for Colleen. That was, good. That was really good, Danny was coming back, he’d been away for a few years now, even longer on his end considering that he hadn’t gotten blipped. It would be great to finally see him again. “That’s good to hear. You finish everything up abroad?”

“I’m not sure I can say that I have. Feels like every time I solve a problem two more spring up. But I can’t be everywhere at once. This journey was also supposed to be a time of healing for Ward, and I think he’s made incredible progress. Obviously I’m pretty used to being away from home for a long time, but both of us are starting to miss it, and I don’t want to neglect my home either.”

“Yeah. Yeah.” Yeah. “That’s pretty cool. And, hey, if you get back quick enough, maybe you can help me more with this.”

“I doubt you need it.” There was a quiet, awkward chuckle from the other end. “Hey Colleen, can I ask you a question?”

“Yeah, sure, what’s up?”

“Are the two of us still, like, together?”

“Hey, I gotta go!” Colleen yanked the phone away from her ear and slammed the hang up button.

Shit. That probably sent a bad message.

Colleen pushed her pad thai to the side and took a moment with her face in her hands, to just come down off of that panic.

The thought dug at the back of her brain. Like, were they? After all this, after Davos, after becoming the Iron Fist, after Danny left for Asia, after Colleen was _dead_ for five years. Were they?

Colleen’s phone vibrated on the tabletop with a message. She cringed and forced herself to look. Danny had texted her about a dozen addresses. No extra comments or questions about what had just happened. So that was done.

She’d have to call him back, or text him, or talk to him about this in some way. It wasn’t the kind of thing you could just leave sitting, that would only make it worse.

But for right now, she should get rolling on this investigation.

Colleen got herself dressed, slung her trusty sword over her shoulder and she went out. Jogged all the way across town to Hell’s Kitchen and to Jessica’s apartment building. Caught her breath in the elevator ride up and was quickly knocking on the door of Alias Investigations.

And she waited, waited for a minute, bordering on two, starting to get worried.

Jessica cracked open the door.

“What time is it.”

“Uh,” Colleen checked her phone. “12:14.”

Jessica groaned as she undid the latch and let her into the office.

Colleen stepped in, taking off her sword and resting it in the corner behind the door.

“Don’t you usually, like, have clients earlier than this?”

“I don’t take appointments on the weekends.”

“Right.” Right. “So I called up Danny, and I found every other property in the city owned by ‘Quentin Beck’” she gave the finger quotes to get her point across, “to see if there’s any pattern or location that this guy is interested in.”

“Sure. I mean I was gonna do that today anyways but- you got it handled.”

Jessica plopped down at her desk and pulled open her laptop. Colleen had to wait restlessly as she turned it on, loaded up her browser, pulled open a map function.

“You want me to get you some coffee or something?” Colleen helpfully asked.

“I’m good.”

“You sure?”

Jessica looked up at Colleen. She smiled back.

Eventually they had their map set up. Colleen would list off an address, Jessica would check what was there and then put a pin on the map.

Most of the pins ended up in Harlem. It wasn’t universal. Some of the addresses ended up in Hell’s Kitchen. Some in Midtown. A few in the East Village, Soho, and Tribeca, but more than half of them were bunched up around Harlem.

“Who’d wanna start shit in Luke’s backyard,” Jessica muttered.

“Well we already knew he had some balls when he tried to drop a building on you two,” Colleen said. “In his backyard.”

“Right.” Jessica took a deep breath and looked at Colleen. “Feel like doing some legwork.”

“Thought you’d never ask.”

* * *

Luke Cage walked back up to Club 1610. It was a little later this time. There was an actual line to get in. A couple of spotlights and a smoke machine gave the entrance a bit of ambiance. He could hear the bass thumping from across the street. It was kind of giving him a migraine.

He expected the bouncer to try and start shit as he approached. He wasn’t exactly planning to wait in line after all. Instead the bouncer unclipped the rope blocking the entrance and stepped to the side to let him pass.

“Stoneface is expecting you.”

Of course he was.

Luke stepped on in, the line behind him exploding into groans and complaints about that indignity.

The dance floor was like a whole different place once the night got started. It was full. It was lively. Bodies bumped and pushed together, packed so tightly that it was hard for any of them to do much more that bounce in place. And grinding was almost unavoidable, which was certainly a good excuse to use. The lights were down low, spots of neon swung and spun around the room, highlighting people in it for just a moment before leaving them again for the dark.

There was an actual DJ this time. When he had been here before, the music was just a generic looping club track. Now that it was actually busy, there was a guy at the podium focused intently on his work. Mixing, matching, cutting and looping song after song to create a melody that never seemed to end, but still managed to peak and dip and slow and stop and start up again. Luke was beginning to see why the big boss of Manhattan’s gun trade hung out here every night.

Feeling way more out of place, Luke clomped across the dance floor in his work boots and hoodie, took the stairs up to VIP, this time without issue, and found Stoneface and his entourage in their usual spots. Same jacket, same chains as before, though now his turtleneck was a bright green. Looking like Barnie the Pimp as he sat and drank and laughed.

“Mr. Cage!” Stoneface called out the second he saw Luke. “Decide to come crawling back?”

Luke groaned in his head. He still wasn’t even sure what he was going to say here.

“Or are you here to ruin our pleasant evening by bothering me again about whatever bullshit you was prattling off last night?” That prompted a round of laughter from the whole crew.

“No, actually,” Luke refrained from taking a seat this time. “I’m actually here on different business.”

Stoneface gave a low chuckle. “The business of trying to get me as a contact, right? Of trying to – to find criminals that bought their gear from me and bring them to justice? Of trying to _restrict access_ to new, powerful, and not to mention dangerous weapons as they enter the city? That business?”

This might’ve been a bad idea. “You hear about the building that blew up in Harlem?”

“I did, and allow me to give my condolences for having to experience such an extreme act of violence.”

“The bomb that blew it up, was Hammertech. Gear like that, it had to come in through you. Who bought a dozen bags of explosives in the last two months?”

“And what, pray tell, what reason do I have to give up my own clientele to a champion of justice like yourself?”

“This isn’t some turf war or some gangs clashing, this is domestic terrorism. It helps no one. People aren’t going to want to arm themselves, they’re going to move out. That doesn’t help you. That doesn’t help anyone. If whoever did this acts again, it’ll be bad for everyone involved. And that includes you.”

“Is that what you think, Mr. Luke Cage? And I assume you have the experience, perhaps some anecdotes, to back up the assertion.”

“...I’ve lived in this city for a long time.”

Stoneface smiled. “Bitch me too. In fact, I’d take a wager that I’ve lived in this city exactly 5 years longer than you. So let me explain how this works.”

He stood, head even with Luke’s.

“What people will and won’t take, it’s not some yes or no answer depending on the flavor of the situation. This bitch is a gradient that ends in a sharp line. People will take what they think they have to, until they can’t. And it don’t matter who did what to who or when, all I want to do is push people as far to the line as I can get em, and all I want is for them not to hop right over it. And ever since the day that aliens fell out of the sky and started knocking down buildings plural, that line’s just been pushed farther and farther away. So, Luke, unless you got something that I actually give a shit about, I believe this meeting is-”

A heavy shadow fell from the roof of the building and landed behind Stoneface. His two goons drew their guns and spun on their heels, and by the time they had their aim ready, Daredevil was standing behind Stoneface, with a baton pulled against his windpipe.

“We tried it his way,” Daredevil growled. “Now we’re doing it mine.”

Stoneface let out a strained laugh. “Look at this boys. We got ourselves a fucking proper superhero team up here. This is getting excited.”

“Hey come on man, lay off,” Luke said.

Daredevil pressed his knee into the back of Stoneface’s leg. “You’ve got 2 seconds, the information or your ability to walk.”

“Alright, calm down, calm down.” Stoneface didn’t look worried for a second. “If I’ve got both the Bulletproof Black Man _and_ the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen after my ass, it may behoove me to relent just this once.”

The smile never dropped. The face never cracked. Something was up.

“But unfortunately, ah,” he continued. “You know I don’t usually keep receipts on me when I go out clubbing. Give me a few days to- Ach!”

Daredevil put his boot down on the back Stoneface’s shin. “Not good enough. Start thinking harder.”

“Hey!” Luke said. “Lay off already.”

“Listen to your friend, huh. We can do business. There’s business to be had.”

“I need a name.” Daredevil stomped onto the back of his leg. Stoneface let out a sharp yell.

Luke had had enough. He pushed forward, shoved Daredevil back which freed Stoneface from his grip.

A gunshot rang in his ear and something pinged off the side of his face. He turned. One of Stoneface’s goons had pulled a gun. Luke slapped it out of his hand.

Now that the ringing was starting to leave his ears, he could hear panic down on the dance floor. He groaned. Then he shoved Daredevil off to the side.

“What the hell were you thinking?”

“One second.”

Daredevil took his baton and threw it behind Luke. He turned to see it smack off the gun in the hand of the other goon.

“Three days,” he said to Stoneface. “Three days and I come calling again.”

“And I look forward to the meeting.”

“And don’t skip town,” Luke added. “I’ll know if you do.”

“I’m sure you will Mr. Luke Cage.”

Stoneface and his crew turned their backs and walked off towards the stairs, evacuating the building as calm as could be. Some of the guys around him kept looking back at Luke and Daredevil. Stoneface though, didn’t seem bothered for an instant.

Once they were out of sight, Luke turned back to Matt.

“What was that?”

“I got you in, didn’t I?”

“You set up a trap. In three days, we’re going to be walking right into a trap.”

“Exactly where I want to be.”

“Now we’re never going to get shit from him.”

“You weren’t going to get shit from him as it stood. Let him think he has the upper hand, then snatch it out from under him. He might talk then.”

“Or you jumped in way too early and scared him off.”

Matt shook his head. “I heard everything. You weren’t getting through to him. He didn’t have a reaction to anything you were saying.” Deep breath. “Cops are coming.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Police cruiser, two blocks away, they’re coming here.”

“And let me guess.”

He nodded. “I gotta go before they arrive.”

Of course. Luke didn’t even get the chance to object before he darted off, jumped off the banister and swung into the rafters, out of sight. Luke started down the stairs. Maybe he could at least avoid getting wrapped up in a mess best left for the cops.

But he could hear the sirens already. He had almost, _almost_ made it to the front door when it was kicked open. And two boys in blue burst in with guns at the ready.

“NYPD, put your hands where I can see them!”

Luke sighed and slowly raised his hands over his head.

* * *

Carl Burbank was led into the mess hall with the rest of his prison block. There were a couple of curious eyes on him. Everyone wanted to know how the man with no arms was gonna handle prison life. He knew what to expect, even if his only prior experience had been on the other side of things. He stood in line as the inmates in front of him got their trays of food until he was next up. The worker looked concerned, confused, about what to do with the plate of dirty rice and beans that he held, until Carl snatched it out of his hands with his teeth. A single glower at him was enough to keep him from saying anything about it, but that didn’t stop the snickering from around the room.

Continuing in the line, Carl was next given his seat where he unceremoniously dropped the tray onto the table and sat.

Even more curious eyes were on him now, how was the man with no arms going to eat. He was about to show them, when a man sat across from him. The annoying wannabe, Shappe. It was an unfortunate coincidence, but one he could ignore. Until Shappe started talking.

“Hey there _stranger_,” he said. “How are you doing on this fine day.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Carl said through grit teeth. “Don’t talk to me.”

“What’s wrong _stranger._ You’re being awfully rude to someone that _don’t even know your name yet._ What _is your name_ come to think of it.”

“Wait...” he tried to whisper. “Wait until we’re-”

“So whensabouts do you think _you_ will get out of here huh? Cause man, it’s only been a day for me and _I’m already wondering how long it’s gonna be_.” He actually winked there.

“I said, wait,” he less whispered and more growled.

“Cause let me tell you I just _can’t wait until I can get out of here-_”

Carl stood up and slammed his head into the top of Shappe’s. Shappe fell back off of his seat and collapsed onto the ground. So Carl was free to sit back down and eat. Even more eyes on him now after that commotion.

Might as well make an impression now.

Carl shot down and went at his food like a starving dog. He knew how to eat with his feet, but he had no interest in attempting to right now. People would think that a guy like him wouldn’t be able to fight back. He just wanted to prove him wrong. Every piece of his meal mixed in with each other, not only the rice and beans but even the shit brownie on the side and the plastic cup of juice. He’d tasted worse, and he didn’t have the leeway to care.

The guy next to him yelled. “Hey hey hey, watch what the fuck you’re doing-”

Carl’s head shot up, and he fixed the man with his most practiced, craziest glare. He immediately shrank.

“Jesus, calm down.”

Carl went right back down into his food, chomping down the last of it and leaving more than a few bite marks on the plastic tray itself.

Lifting his head again, sauces dripping from his chin like blood, he looked around the hall. Amused faces now looked concerned, a few even scared. Message successfully conveyed. Not a minute more passed, and the guards began telling the inmates to finish up and grab their trays. Carl picked his back up with his teeth and took it over to the disposal area. One of the guards had to get Shappe’s uneaten meal.

From there, each inmate was led to their afternoon jobs. Carl was not a prisoner, not yet at any rate, and so they could not legally put him to work. Not yet at any rate. So instead he was lead to the recreational area outdoors. The sun beat down brightly on him. He would smell absolutely rank in a few hours.

Of course, that would just help keep the others off his back for the time being. He could deal with the smell.

There was nothing Carl could really do out here, nothing he really wanted to do, so he took a seat on the bleachers and just glowered. Glowered at nothing in particular, until someone looked over at him and then he glowered in their direction.

After about 40 minutes, maybe an hour had passed, a new figure emerged out into the open area. It was Shappe, a fresh contusion still marked across his forehead. Carl sighed as he still made sure to saunter on over towards him and take a seat just in front.

“You know I really don’t think that was necessary,” he said. “Our cover was perfectly fine back there.”

“You don’t fucking talk in the mess hall,” Carl said. “Especially not about anything important. It’s dead quiet and all the guards will be breathing down your neck.”

“Which is why, stupid, I made sure to keep the cover perfectly tight. No one suspected a thing.”

Carl groaned. “Just don’t. Just. Don’t.”

“Fine, fine, whatever. I still wanna know though, when are we getting out?”

“I told you back in there. _Wait._ We’re not doing anything right now but wait until someone comes to get us.”

“You want me to just sit on my ass here man? I’m jonesing like a motherfucker, I wasn’t _built_ to sit around and wait.”

“Then I’d suggest a career change.” Every bone in Carl’s body knew that depending on a basehead like Shappe was the worst idea imaginable. But he wasn’t the one writing the checks here.

“What if no one comes to get us? What if we’re just stuck here forever man, I can’t fucking deal with that!”

“Our _guy_ won’t let us sit and rot here, because that’s a waste of money. He still needs us, he’s already paid us, and we haven’t done a damn thing except get arrested. He’ll be back. Just sit down, shut up, and for God’s sake, just wait.”

“Fine, fine, I got it.” Shappe rested his head on his hand and started tapping his foot. “So like what timeframe do you think we’re dealing with here? Days? Weeks? Think it’ll be today?”

Carl stood up. Stepped down the bleachers, past Shappe. Then slammed his head into Shappe’s and knocked him out cold again.

* * *

Jessica sat alone in her office, at 11 at night, alone, staring at her computer screen, with her head in her hands.

The day after Kara, Jessica and Colleen had left to scope out all the places that were owned by Quentin Beck, and what they had found was a bunch of normal, non-suspicious buildings. Some of them were active businesses, some of them were just empty buildings. Some of the empty buildings were residential, some were commercial. They were all just buildings, some of which Jessica had passed before without giving them a second thought.

The day after that, Jessica and Colleen started asking the people in the buildings about who owned them. For the businesses that were still open, they’d managed to get in contact with a manager or something who was not at all clued into the finances and didn’t know anything about who owned the property that they did business in, and mostly didn’t care. The empty ones weren’t really empty cause they were filled with homeless people and squatters. And they didn’t know anything, all they were concerned with was a roof that no one was using. Jessica went through a lot of dollar bills to get that information.

The day after that, Jessica and Colleen started breaking into places after hours to explore them more. Jessica made sure to keep an eye out for any unnaturally clean floors like with the last time, but no matter how small a hole the two of them checked these places just seemed like regular places. And Jessica couldn’t imagine he’d go for the old ‘blowing a building up while she was in it’ trick twice.

So Jessica just sat at her computer, staring at the map. What was the connection between these places. The guy liked his mindgames, what was the bit, what was the gotcha. The shape, the addresses, the buildings, they all blurred together in Jessica’s mind as she tried to latch onto any pattern. Tried to find any amount of order to what was otherwise 14 random locations scattered across Long Island.

The name Quentin Beck tickled at the back of her brain. That was a weird name to go with. Not like, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, if you wanted a superhero Steve Rogers would attract so much fewer glances.

Now that she was thinking about it... Jessica opened up her usual property search website. Did a runthrough on Steve Rogers. A couple hundred locations popped up. Yeah... yeah that made sense. Too generic a name. There were probably a dozen Steve Rogers in NYC alone. She did a search on Tony Stark before realizing what a dumb idea that was. Another couple hundred, though these were probably actually owned by Stark or his company. Fuck it, search on Bruce Banner. That one was at least a different result. It gave up a fat zilch.

Quentin Beck was... he was a superhero right? Matt had said it was a... ‘media circus’. The hell did that mean.

She looked him up. Wikipedia article, two news stories about Spider-Man’s identity, an op ed on Spider-Man’s identity, news article about his death-

This one caught her interest, ‘Everything You Need to Know About Mysterio’. A very listicle article, and Jessica had to fight a few ads just to read it.

Quentin Beck was a soldier from another dimension- Jessica groaned, god this backstory -who lost his family to an attack in his home dimension by The Elementals? The fuck- The Elementals were four beings from Beck’s home dimension, each formed from one of the base elements, earth, water, fire, and air- that’s not even, what is this bad Star Trek plot. S.H.I.E.L.D. has been incredibly sparse with details since the attacks, but The Elementals have since been dubbed- yeah Jessica didn’t care about that, scroll scroll scroll. The Elementals attacked four cities, Ixtenco, Morocco, Venice, and Prague. At each location, Mysterio helped to defeat the Elementals. Or so it seemed. Next page.

In London the four Elementals returned and converged into a single towering entity. Mysterio and Spider-Man were both seen fighting the entity, Mysterio was able to banish the Elementals back to his home dimension, but then Spider-Man unleashed an _army of kill drones onto Mysterio and the city of London WHAT! _Where the hell did that come from. Mysterio was killed in the following skirmish but not before releasing video evidence of this and exposing Spider-Man’s true identity as Peter Parker... Mysterio may be gone but this dimension will never forget the service he paid to us yadda yadda end of article.

Jessica let out a slow breath. That sounded like a bunch of horseshit, but... how much was she able to believe. She knew aliens were a thing now. So was magic. One of her associates came from another dimension and they had fought ninjas over dragon bones. Half of that could be an outright lie, it was so fucking hard to tell these days.

She leaned back into her computer. The article had mentioned S.H.I.E.L.D. giving a statement, what did they have to say about this.

‘S.H.I.E.L.D. Speaks Out on Mysterio’. She clicked that one. On Tuesday S.H.I.E.L.D. representative Robert Gonzales reported that S.H.I.E.L.D.’s official statement on the incident was that the figure known as Quentin Beck was not from another dimension, and that the Elementals were a series of staged and fabricated attacks created by Beck in an effort to acquire technologies left behind by the late Tony Stark. If you can stage magma man attacks then what the fuck technologies do you need. These claims correlate with statements made by Avengers correspondent Harold “Happy” Hogan. That sentence linked to a different article. Jessica clicked it. ‘The Avengers’ Happy Hogan Spills All on Mysterio and Spider-Man’.

Coming fresh off of the tragic attacks in South America and Europe, as well as the shocking leaked footage of Spider-Man seemingly ordering the attack, Happy Hogan (who has worked closely with Tony Stark and the Avengers) gave an official statement to the press. The footage released, according to Hogan, was doctored to frame Spider-Man, now known to be high school student Peter Parker. According to Hogan, Spider-Man was not telling the AI voice heard in the clip to execute people, but to execute the drones’ current orders to attack. Okay, dadadada, Mysterio wanted... attention? Mysterio wanted the notoriety that superheroes got, believing that nobody listened to him or took his ideas seriously. Fuckin, what. Why anyone would wanna be a hero in the first place was beyond Jessica but faking things to that extent? For attention?

She scrolled down further and hit the comments.

‘This is all bull****’ nice auto-censor ‘shield is blatantly lying to cover for the spiderman and in fact I think shield was involved in mysterios death.’

‘Y’all gotta be crazy, listen to the voice in the clip again it sounds so fake and inserted.’

‘Listen I was there in Prague you could feel the heat from the fire monster there’s no way that could be faked.’

‘Right? My cousin was vacationing in Venice and he said when the river guy was destroying stuff that he got splashed several times. How could a fake creature make someone wet?’

‘Mysterio is the hero that we need right now.’

This clip, Jess was curious about this clip. She checked YouTube. ‘Mysterio exposes spider-man’.

What played was what looked like shoddy cell phone footage of a close up of a guy wearing an overcompensating cape with cuts and scrapes all over him. Immediately he started rambling. Pushing the Elementals back through the interdimensional whatsit whoever, weaponized drones, Stark technology, the new Iron Man. The video shifted to a wider shot, same quality. A bodyless voice asked about drone attacks. Spider-Man said to execute them all. It flashed back. Spider-Man’s name is Peter Parker. Jessica skipped back to the bit where Spider-Man said to execute them all. Quality was so garbage it’d be hard to pick out any tells. It looked, like, convincing enough, though that one comment had a point. Sounded a little inserted.

In the recommended videos list was cell phone footage of the London attack. ‘Monster in London attack footage’ it was so helpfully called. Jessica clicked that.

The footage was shaky and constantly swinging back and forth as the person who filmed this was probably running for their life. They spun around and Jessica got a good look at the ‘monster’. Basically a storm cloud with a face, with chunks of everything swirling up into its body. It punched Tower Bridge and knocked a whole segment of support out and into the river. Several small explosions flashed across the bridge itself. The camera swung some more. The monster got a hole in it.

Jessica skipped back and paused. A hole in the monster’s gut had opened up, surrounded by some glowing blue energy. She could barely make out its insides being 10 pixels tall, but it looked hollow. She hit play again. The camera swung and left the monster for a bit. Then the person stopped running and turned and made sure to get this. There were several similar holes all over the monster now. It stood, completely frozen.

And then it just vanished. Jessica blinked. She had to double back and watch that again. That same blue energy that surrounded the hole consumed the whole creature until it was just gone. Not only it but the twisters that surrounded it and the clouds in the sky above it. There was a cloud of something sitting around where the creature had been. It wasn’t until they flew towards the camera and the person filming suddenly got back to running that she realized those were the drones that kept popping up in this discussion.

She looked at the comments. A dozen news stations asking to use the footage, of course.

‘thank god you survived’ ‘damn’ ‘what is happening in the world today’ ‘so was it real? i can’t tell’

‘The Mysterio attacks were faked!! Check r/RealHeroes for the evidence!!!’

Real Heroes huh? Jessica had to check what the r/ was about, but she found it pretty quickly. A Reddit message board. And when she went to the url she found ‘r/realheroes has been banned from Reddit’. Great. Sent that domain through a google search. Yahoo Answers had an answer. ‘What happened to r/RealHeroes?’ ‘It was banned for community disrupting among other superhero subreddits. I think most of them moved to their own domain, wherearetherealheroes.com’

Jessica followed that link.

At the top of wherearetherealheroes.com was a banner, looked like some promotional image the Avengers put out, back when Iron Man and Captain America were still, like, alive. But the image was put into grayscale and red scratch marks were made across the eyes of every individual visible in the picture. Across the header were the words ‘Where Are the Real Heroes?’. What a question.

Below the header was a paragraph of text. ‘Where Are the Real Heroes is a community devoted to investigating the activities of self-proclaimed “superheroes”. We demand honesty and transparency when it comes to the US government utilizing enhanced individuals for their own agendas, and we question the motivations of these heroes in the unlawful execution of their “villains”.’

Right. Okay. Conspiracy website. Cool. Jess scrolled down. All of the most recent threads were about... her. And Luke, and the building that had been dropped on them and wondering what was going on.

The discomfort and revulsion was immediately. She quickly scrolled back up and actually looked away from her computer screen.

“Jesus...”

None of that was what she was looking for anyways. Instead she hit up the search bar and entered ‘Mysterio’.

Lot of results, but the very first one was called ‘Mysterio Evidence Compilation [COMPLETE]’ so that was a good place to start.

Compiled below is all of the evidence that ‘I’ could find relating to Mysterio and the Elemental attacks. Mysterio is not, actually, one of these superheroes but rather a villain(?) posing as a hero to infiltrate their ranks and expose the hypocrisy of- Jesus Christ get on with it. She scrolled through the actual list of evidence. First off was basic shit, story made no sense, the ‘elements’ were arbitrary and not grounded in any actual science.

Quentin Beck isn’t from another dimension. The guy posted a picture of an MIT yearbook. Among the pictures of students, and circled in red so you couldn’t miss it, was a guy demonstrably _not_ named Quentin Beck but who looked remarkably similar to him without a beard. Okay.

Past that it was all footage of the London attacks. Different angles from different cell phones, all showing the instant that the monster dissolved, “sent through the dimensional rift” as Beck put it, and the resulting chaos with sleek white drones shooting missiles and bullets all over the place after the fact. On repeated viewings, Jessica started to notice how Mysterio seemed to freeze and disappear the same way as the monster. How’d he get out that dying message then.

One piece of footage got a short clip of Spider-Man hitting some drones with something and causing them to violently explode. That certainly put a hole in the theory that he was the one commanding them. Another clip got a split second shot that was freeze framed to show a single person up in the Tower Bridge’s skybridge. It was way too blurry to make out any details though.

It was hard to admit but the conspiracy nuts had a solid point here. At least, until she hit the comments.

‘Mysterio is definitely one of us, that’s fucking awesome.’ One of us?

‘Can’t believe Mysterio was the worst hero cause he was the best villain.’

‘We need more bad guys like him. Head on assaults won’t get you anywhere anymore. Taking the system down from within is where it’s at.’

The hell were these people talking about. Even for a conspiracy board, they didn’t usually position themselves as the bad guys.

Jessica paused, then she went back to the home page and did a search for the most popular threads of all time.

Thread number 1, ‘Did Thanos have a point?’ What.

‘You can tell me that what Thanos did was wrong all you want, and yes it was bad to kill half the universe, but we do need to take a step back and look at the serious overpopulation problem that we’re facing. I could actually get a place to live during the blip, now that it’s over I’m being kicked back onto the street with nowhere to go, just like before. Did the Avengers even think before bringing everyone back without any warning? If they had the capabilities this could’ve been done in a more controlled environment instead of dropping 3 million people back on our laps’- That was enough, Jess had had enough reading that.

She went back to the list. ‘Killmonger Did Everything Right’, ‘#FreeToomes’, ‘The Case for Loki’, ‘The Crimes of Tony Stark’, ‘What the deal with Hydra?’ on and on and on. These guys didn’t just hate heroes, they loved villains.

So, what the fuck.

* * *

For the third time in a week, Luke Cage crossed the street towards Club 1610. Nothing out of the usual anymore, at least, not until the bouncer actually put out a hand to stop him this time.

He was about to catch some words, but quickly cut Luke off before he could.

“Stoneface told me to give you this.”

He handed Luke a business card.

‘Aunt Morgan’s Southern Kitchen’. Address and phone number attached. It was actually on the same street as Harlem’s Paradise. That was definitely concerning, to say the least. Was Stoneface related to this place or, maybe he was just a patron.

Still, the change in venue probably meant that, whatever Stoneface wanted to do tonight, he wanted to get it done with here and now. Luke gave the bouncer a nod and left.

Now that he was thinking about it, the change in venue almost certainly meant this was an ambush, not a peace treaty. If he was just here to give some information and get Luke off his back, he could easily do that from the club’s VIP section. And it wasn’t an issue of secrecy either, since he was taking this to another public space. Though with that in mind... Luke was starting to worry about what Stoneface’s plans were.

Aunt Morgan’s Southern Kitchen was a 2-story, intentionally rustic-looking brick building with some metalworking on the roof but none at ground level. The name was posted in giant neon letters on the second floor, along with the image of an entire cooked chicken.

What Luke found interesting was, the sidewalks were still busy of course, but none of the business had anything to do with the restaurant. There was no crowd or line of people waiting outside, people would look at it and move on but nobody actually went in.

There was a single door out front, with a big ‘WE ARE CLOSED’ sign on it, which would explain all that. But according to the business hours listed just below, it should still be open.

Luke gave the door an experimental push, and it opened without resistance, so he went and stepped in.

The inside was fancy to be certain, more concerned with looking expensive (or rather, worth the cost of admission) than looking like an actual southern kitchen. Low, warm light bouncing off of a lot of gold decorations. Brown carpeting, auburn walls, and stainless white cloths on every table. There was a single set of stairs to the side leading to the second floor seating, with a balcony overlooking the reception area.

And Stoneface leaned over that balcony and looked down at Luke.

“Mr. Cage, so nice of you to join me this evening. My sincerest thanks that you would join in my own family’s illustrious establishment. And you even brought your partner Daredevil with you.”

What? Daredevil? Luke looked back and- oh sugar honey ice tea he was right there.

“What the hell?”

Matt didn’t bother to look at him. “I thought you knew I was here.”

“I would just like to say,” Stoneface continued. “That I am well and _truly_ humbled to play host to two accomplished superheroes such as yourself.”

“We just want the name of the guy who bought the bombs Stoneface,” Luke said. “No one needs to get hurt.”

“Well, I’m very sorry, but I had some other arrangements for tonight.” Stoneface snapped his fingers and suddenly half a dozen guys with guns ran up along the balcony, even more popping out of siderooms and taking cover behind tables. Every muzzle in the room was pointed at Luke and Matt. “See I was just planning to let you stew in your own impotent disappointment Mr. Cage, but once the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen himself got involved, why, I just could not pass up on a chance to kill you both.”

“You act like you know everything about me, you know how this goes. What do you think a couple of guns are going to do?”

“Motherfucker I have _all_ the guns! You think I don’t pack heat that can put down a superhero?”

Luke tapped his chest. “Then hit me with your best shot.”

Stoneface laughed. “You heard him boys!” And he turned right around and moved out of Luke’s sight while laughing. “Man I love this shit man.”

Most of the guys on the upper balcony were packing machine guns. When they opened fire, Luke puffed out his chest and broadened his shoulders and let the bullets bounce off of him while Matt hid behind him. The usual position Luke found himself in. But two of the guys, one on either end of the balcony, were carrying something a little weirder. Didn’t look like any guns Luke had ever seen.

They fired. Two blasts of bright red energy slammed Luke in the chest, burning deeply and knocking him off his feet. When Luke sat up, he looked down, touched where he’d been hit, and found bubbling, sensitive, red raw skin, and a faint trail of smoke.

“Well, shit...”

Every person in the room had paused to see if that actually worked. And when it apparently had, when Luke Cage doubled over and clutched at his chest, that meant it was open season. The room filled with gunfire and laser blasts. A few extra bullets bounced off of Luke, he kept his hand over his wounds so none had the opportunity to dig into the exposed skin, but he still needed to keep moving cause more those lasers were coming down too. He saw them burn the ground beneath him black, saw stray bolts melt straight through tables and tablecloths without stopping.

Daredevil had kicked one of the tables over and was hunkered behind it. The wood was thick enough to stop whatever bullets came his way. Not those lasers though. Every second or so, he would have to jerk his head or body to twist around one as it flew past.

“Hey Devil Guy,” Luke said, hunkering behind a table himself. He still took a few laser shots to the shoulder, but at the very least a few of them were also missing. “You wanna handle the big guns up top so we can get somewhere?”

“Those things hurt you,” Matt said back. “What do you think they’re going to do to me?”

“Then don’t get hit, ninja man.”

Matt ducked as a stray laser shot over his head. “Easier said than done – out in the open.”

Luke sighed. “Alright. Give me a second. Just make sure you actually take the shot when you see it.”

Matt stared at him.

“You know what I mean.”

Luke burst out from behind his table, he had to lift his forearm to block another laser beam, took another nasty burn there, and grabbed the tablecloth from the table he was hiding behind and whipped it into the air.

It fell slowly. Floating and fluttering down on its own time and completely obscuring the vision of the second floor. That didn’t stop them from trying though. In seconds the tablecloth was full of holes, some tiny from bullets whizzing through, some larger and burnt black on the edges from those lasers.

Daredevil was on the move immediately. He sprinted across the room towards the stairs. It wasn’t a clean sprint. He wasn’t allowed that. Lucky shots were still getting through the sheet and the guys on the ground could still see him fine. He vaulted over one table then landed and tucked and rolled under the next. Moving up and down across the geography to keep the aim off of him. He ran and dropped into a slide as a laser blast passed right in front of his face.

The sheet was almost down now and Daredevil was only halfway there. He needed a few more seconds.

Luke moved back to the front of the restaurant. He snapped the front podium from its base and hurled it, straight through the falling sheet, and straight into the upper balcony. It crashed through the banister and knocked a couple of guys over. Everyone still standing immediately turned and emptied a few shots into whatever had just crashed into their space. And that was all the time Daredevil needed.

He didn’t even go up the stairs, he jumped onto the railing, pushed off and leaped from the opposite wall, and landed on the upper floor. He wound up right next to one of the raygun guys, hit him with an elbow and a knee that knocked him to the floor. Snatched his gun out of the air, with one hand slammed the barrel into the wall behind him to bend and break it, then hurled it across the floor to knock the raygun out of the other guy’s hands.

Daredevil went in, which meant it was time to clear out the first floor too. None of the guys done here had those rayguns, so Luke was free to walk forward without issue.

“Now,” he said. “You can just call it quits here if you want.”

The three guys down here looked at him, looked at each other, looked around nervously. One broke to try and run for the employees only door. Luke grabbed a chair and tossed it at him, and knocked him to the ground.

“But don’t do that.”

The one guy pulled his SMG back up and kept on firing. One of the bullets got lucky and hit a burn spot. It stung a bit, and Luke winced, but then he felt at the spot and didn’t find any serious damage or anything. So instead of worrying about it, he reached forward and grabbed the muzzle and squeezed. The metal coiled in on itself, and then exploded in his palm. The guy dropped his gun in shock. Then Luke whapped him across the head and dropped him.

The other guy ran up and tried to shove a knife into Luke’s gut. It shattered on impact. The guy looked down, looked back up at Luke.

“I just- I just thought maybe-”

Luke swung a backhand and the guy crumpled to the floor.

That was the bottom floor cleared out then. Now he just had to wait on-

Daredevil crashed through the ceiling, straddled atop another goon. The guy beneath Matt landed flat on his back and if that wasn’t bad enough Matt laid into his face with a hook to make sure he was down before getting up.

“You know where Stoneface went?” Luke asked.

Matt took a second. “He just went down some stairs in the back. Not leaving. Headed for the kitchen.”

He walked over towards the employees only door. Through it was a pretty small hallway, kitchen doors to the right, two other doors on the left.

“Going towards the freezer.”

Matt stopped right next to the kitchen door.

“Maybe you should go in first.”

“Why am I going in first?” Luke walked in front of the doors and looked through the window into the kitchen. About 15 men were standing around with rayguns pointed straight at the door.

Luke ducked back.

“Really?” he said.

“You can survive them.”

Luke sighed. “Alright. Stick behind me.”

Luke moved in front of the door again. Matt stood behind him. Luke took a few deep breaths. Shook himself loose. Bounced on his toes. Then he crossed his arms over his chest and charged into the room.

Everyone in the room jumped when Luke barged in and slammed the door open. Everyone also opened fire. Burning stinging spots landed all over Luke’s body, but he was just focused on keeping his footing and not being blown back again. Immediately, the five guys clustered around the entrance were bowled over and knocked to the floor. Then Luke started swinging at everyone in range. Most people had the good sense to make some distance. Those that didn’t weren’t on their feet for much longer.

Daredevil ducked out from behind Luke and helped to pick off those sticking to the corners. He scrambled under one guy’s shots, pushed up, vaulted over a counter, and hit him with a flying roundhouse. He reached out to the wall next to him and grabbed a cast iron frying pan, used that to block a barrage of laser beams coming from the next guy. He then slammed the frying pan over that guy’s head and then flung it across the room to slam into some other guy’s head and both hit the ground at roughly the same time.

That was pretty interesting though. Luke grabbed an iron skillet from a nearby counter and held it over his chest. He felt the thud of the lasers making impact but nothing more than that. There were scorch marks and craters where they hit. But they didn’t go through. He looked back up. The remaining guys were aiming at his head now.

He lifted the skillet up and let the shots hit, the bullcharged the guys who had shot him. Wasn’t entirely sure when he reached them until the skillet bounced off one guy’s head. He then took the skillet by the handle in one hand and slapped the two nearest guys with it as well.

Luke turned back around. Anyone left?

One guy left. Raygun up and at the ready. Luke got ready to do... something.

One of Daredevil’s batons bounced off his chest, flew across the room, and smacked the guy in the forehead. And then he was out too. Matt snatched the baton out of the air as it rebounded back towards him.

“Really dude?” he said.

“It was the best angle.” Matt pointed over at a big walk in freezer with a latch on the front. “Stoneface should be in there.”

Luke stepped up to it, pulled the latch and swung the door open. Stoneface stood at the end of the freezer, having just finished setting up a funky looking machine gun on a tripod. Luke Cage had less than a second to dive out of the way before a torrent of red laser beams shot from the door and bored clean through the opposite wall, and the wall behind that, and the wall behind that, and past where Luke could see from an angle.

“Come on in Mr. Cage,” Stoneface called out. “Big strong superhero like yourself. You’re not afraid of a little chill are you?”

Luke sighed and grumbled and winced a little as the burns on his body were really starting to sting.

“Any ideas?” Matt asked.

“Well, I got one.”

Luke moved back into the kitchen, grabbed a couple of the skillets still hanging around, and shoved them down the front of his hoodie. He tied the strings to the handles to keep them up. Then he walked back to the freezer.

“You think that’s gonna work?”

“Here’s hoping.”

Couple more deep breaths. One last one.

Luke opened the freezer back up.

“I ain’t scared of nothing.”

Stoneface gave a great big, shit-eating smile and he probably laughed a little while he was at it, but the sound was quickly covered up by rapid-fire blast of the gun. Luke braced himself. The shots pinged off of the skillets in his jacket. They rattled against his stomach.

No burning yet. Luke started walking forward. Slowly. Confidently. Like he had all the time in the world.

Stoneface’s smile faltered. His brow scrunched every so softly, and he pulled the trigger harder.

Luke kept on moving forward. He didn’t want to break into a run. He didn’t want to give Stoneface any impression of having the upper hand. That said, the metal was starting to slag against his chest. So he was a little more worried than he let on.

“Would you just die already motherfucker!”

Luke’s jacket caught fire. That was frustrating. He’d have to just put up with it for now. At least it helped with the cold.

“What the shit- What the fuck are you?”

Luke reached forward, grabbed the muzzle twisted and crumpled the metal under his fingers, then yanked it off the tripod and let the pieces and parts scatter to the ground.

“I’m a goddamn superhero,” he said. With one hand he shoved Stoneface against the wall. “But you, you ain’t no supervillain.”

“Hey come on man, come on man, just chill- chill out man come on.” Stoneface was proper panicking now. One hand up, like that could stop Luke Cage. Teeth chattering in the cold and eyes wide in the flames.

Luke started patting himself down, getting most of the fire off of him. And once he was sure he wouldn’t ignite the man, he grabbed Stoneface by the collar and lifted him off his feet with one hand.

“Last chance, Stoneface. Tell me who bought the bombs.”

“C- Come on man, I can’t- you know I can’t-”

Luke cocked his other hand back in a fist.

“Daniel! Dan- Daniel. His- His name was Daniel Berkhart, okay. D- Daniel Berkhart.”

Luke lowered his fist, and Stoneface. “All you had to say.”

He gave one last smirk and turned to walk back out of the freezer. Gave himself a couple more pats to put out the last of the fires on him.

* * *

Walking up to the door of Alias Investigations was becoming a part of Colleen’s daily schedule. She would show up at 11 am and knock and Jessica would answer the door like she just woke up. And then Jessica would put on her jacket and the two of them would go and stake out more of the buildings on the Mysterio List (as Colleen had taken to calling it).

So it was surprising for a second when she knocked on the door and the person who answered it wasn’t Jessica.

“Oh- Hey, Gillian.” Jessica’s assistant was certainly a lot happier to open the door than Jessica usually was.

“Hi Colleen, how are you doing this morning sweetie?”

“Good, doing good, um, is Jessica in right now?”

Gillian sighed and opened the door a little wider. Colleen looked in and saw Jessica passed out over her desk and snoring lightly. Laptop open in front of her.

“Oof,” Colleen said. “Was she like that when you got here?”

“Yeah. Didn’t really feel like bothering her.”

Colleen circled around to the back of the desk and braced herself.

She poked Jessica in the shoulder. “Jess?” Gave her a bit more of a shake. “Jess-”

Jessica suddenly jumped awake. First thing she did was look around the room in a panic. Second thing she did was wince, groan, and stretch her back out across the back of her chair.

“What time is it,” she asked.

“Quarter past 11,” Gillian said.

Jessica gave her a look. “You didn’t wake me up.”

“If I did you’d get mad.”

“Fuck me.” Jessica stood and gave another stretch and started massaging her back. “There any Monster left.”

“I dunno, I don’t raid your fridge.”

Jess huffed and shambled over to her kitchen. A couple seconds later she came back in with a tall black and cyan can. Cracked it open, chugged it, put it down on the desk. Colleen had to wince. That stuff was like sludge.

“Okay, so,” she said. “Last night I was trying really hard to like – get into our guy’s – head.”

“How would you even do that, we don’t really know anything about him.”

“I think... I think he’s one of these nutjobs.” She pointed to her laptop, which was currently showing a screensaver. “These guys who hate fucking... _‘superheroes’_, and idolize the bad, villain, guys.” She started chugging more Monster.

“I- I mean- Okay I know what you’re talking about, I’ve heard of supervillain stans but what- why is this guy one of them?”

“He used the name Quentin Beck. Not any dead president or fucking famous politician or business tycoon or any other superhero like fucking Tony Stark or Steve Rogers which would be a million times _better_ to use for something like this. He chose the name Quentin Beck, a dead hero with no family and a unique name that’s really easy to track down. You’re only going to choose Quentin Beck if you really know Quentin Beck. And if you really know Quentin Beck you know he’s not a fucking superhero.”

“Wha-”

Jessica was just going now. “There’s a shitmillion of these phone cam videos of the attack in London where he died and every single one of them, the monster just disappears along with beck, and then a bunch of attack drones come out from where it was and start attacking people. Parker starts fighting the drones, and after he kills Beck then the video gets put out where it looks like Parker was the one controlling them. There’s no way.”

“You got all this in one night?”

“And this guy – he didn’t send mercenaries after us he sent super freaks. Motherfuckers that fucking Spider-Man or Captain America should be beating up, not us. These people think that we’re superheroes, I found myself on those message boards, someone’s setting up some weird superhero bullshit with us. So, I think whoever is doing it, wants to be a supervillain.”

“Right. Okay. Um? So, what does that tell us?”

Jessica collapsed back into her chair. “I don’t know. I tried searching up some other bad guy names as property owners. That... Killmonger guy. Toomes the weapons dealer that Spider-Man also beat the shit out of. Even threw Thanos in just to see, but like it’s not like he has a last name. Thanos Titan? Nothin’.”

“Zemo?”

Jess looked up. “What.”

“Zemo? Did you try Helmut Zemo?”

“Who the fuck is Zemo.”

“The UN Bomber. The guy who split the Avengers.”

“I didn’t see that name.”

“I don’t think the news paid much attention to him at the time considering everything else happening, but like... if you know about the Avengers you know about him.”

“Shit.” Jessica leaned forward and started typing. “That’s what I get for only asking the people who hate those guys.”

Colleen leaned over the desk and watched as Jessica closed out some 70 tabs and opened a new window and pulled up a property tracking website.

“How do you, spell that.”

“Helmut. Like, helmet with a U. Then Z-E-M-O.”

Jessica put the name in and did a search. One result. A place along the ocean on the west side of Brooklyn.

Jessica’s brow scrunched. “That’s outside of his normal operating area.”

Colleen shrugged. “Good place for a supervillain’s hideout though, right?”

The two of them looked at each other.

“Let me guess,” Gillian said. “You’re not taking any appointments today either.”

“You’ll still get paid.” Jessica sneered. “Just – do your job.”

Gillian rolled her eyes and focused on her own computer. The scrolling kind of focus, not anything productive.

* * *

Jessica went to throw on her jacket before realizing that she was still wearing it from last night. So she gave herself a once over with a can of air freshener. Then she and Colleen went out.

Tracking down the address in Brooklyn, Jess and Colleen found (no points for guessing) a shitty run down warehouse. Even came with a couple tags, a couple smashed windows, and a chain and padlock keeping the front door closed. Jess managed to snap that last one open, pretty glad that she probably had some sort of supertoughness to keep the rusty piece of shit from giving her a scratch, or tinnitus.

The inside of the warehouse was dark. For like a second. As soon as the two of them stepped in, lights began flickering on overhead. Jessica had to shield her eyes to adjust.

She looked up. She panicked. She thought she must’ve been teleported or something. This was the penthouse of the Four Seasons. This was Kilgrave’s favorite place to live it up, when he wasn’t crashing someone else’s apartment.

Purple pulsed at the edge of her vision. But it quickly faded. Something was wrong.

As her eyes fully adjusted to the sight, what had looked like the penthouse of a fancy hotel turned into what was obviously a drawing of it. Four flat walls, painted, not lovingly, not laboriously, but competently, to look like a big bedroom with a flatscreen and an open balcony. Most of the space in the ‘room’ was fake, the wall was actually 10 feet closer to Jess than it looked.

There was a door to her left, opposite side of the balcony. But when Jess tried it, it wasn’t actually a door. Just painted to look like one. She grumbled to herself and started to feel around the walls, shitty plywood by the feel of it, for anywhere she could conceivably go through. And she did find an actual, real door that actually opened. It was over the balcony. The banister and sky opened up when pushed.

Jessica was really starting to hate this guy.

Through the door in the balcony, Jess found her office. Or a shitty painting of her office. It was much harder to fake fill the space here, since her office was so tiny and actually had furniture in it. The ‘room’ then was miniscule with an attempt to give the illusion of depth by drawing the walls further than where they really- oh who the fuck cares.

“Yeah, I’m done with this.” Jessica punched the nearest wall, not caring where the door was supposed to be. Flimsy, cheap, thin wood splintered under her knuckles and left a hole in roughly the size and shape of a football. Through the gap, Jessica could see another facsimile of a hotel room, but she didn’t care anymore.

“Jess.” She heard Colleen in the back of her mind.

Jessica reached forward and grabbed and pulled and tore at the edges of the hole, widening it enough for her to get through.

“Jessica!”

Colleen grabbed at her shoulder. She turned to glare at her.

“I can clear these out a lot faster than you can. If you give me some room.”

“...Right.” Jessica stepped back behind Colleen.

“Um, like,” she twirled her finger in a circle. “A lot more room.”

Jessica frowned and looked up. Shielding her eyes from the bright fluorescents above her, it looked like there was some solid rafters up there.

Jessica crouched and then jumped. Up and up she went until she slowed to a stop just in range. One hand went up and latched onto the nearest bar. And she hung there and looked down.

The entire warehouse looked to be composed of this shitty maze. Dozens of interconnecting rooms made cell after cell of what was, from above, one big uneven grid.

Colleen drew her sword. Jessica could hear the sharpness from all the way up here. Holding it in front of her with both hands, a white light began to build within the blade.

Her eyes wandered away again. Where the hell did this maze even lead to. Towards the back of the room, where the painted wood planks stopped, was, well, there was no wood planks. Just a kind of empty space back there. And on the far, far wall was a small set of stairs that went up to a door, probably an office of some kind.

A guy walked out of the office in the back. Jessica squinted her eyes. He was wearing... green. That was about all she could make out. Kinda looked like all those grainy shaky cell phone videos of Beck.

Calm as can be, the guy walked down the stairs, crossed the empty space, and entered the maze.

Wait. Shit.

“Colleen!” Jessica shouted down. “Colleen wait!”

There was no time. Jessica let go and fell.

She watched as she fell, in the time it took her to hit the ground, Colleen took her glowing sword and spun in a full circle, 360. A ray of light flew from the blade in a complete circle around her and spread through the warehouse like a shockwave. Straight through the wood walls on all side until, the last thing Jessica saw before she fell back down into the maze, it hit the guy dead on in the chest.

There was a brief moment where she wasn’t even sure that Colleen’s big beam attack had done anything, the walls didn’t look any different. Nothing changed, not for the next few seconds anyway. THen they all collapsed to the ground at once, leaving only some 2 foot tall hurdles in their way.

“Shit.” Jessica started hopping hurdles and running towards the back. Until at some point she stopped giving a shit and started running straight through them. “Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit.”

“Jess? Jessica, what’s going on?” Colleen started running after her.

Jessica almost stepped right over the body, hidden as it was behind one of the wood hurdles.

Looking at him up close, he definitely looked like a guy on a budget trying to be Mysterio. He had the big glass bowl covering his head. Not really filled with smoke, but opaque nonetheless. He had the red cape and the eye-shaped pins holding it up, though his looked to be painted styrofoam. And instead of a scaly battle suit with armor plating, he wore a pinstriped, emerald green suit with a purple tie. Both were slowly being stained red.

Jessica pulled the helmet off of him. It wasn’t hard, wasn’t really attached to anything. The man underneath was a far cry from the ruggedly handsome Quentin Beck who had appeared in those pre-death videos. This guy was a bit blockier, with sharper cheekbones and a wider nose and messy, ungroomed black hair that threatened to go past his brows but never quite made it.

Jessica placed a hand to the side of his neck, searching for a pulse. She didn’t find one.

“Oh my god!” Colleen nearly screamed when she caught. “Oh my god. Oh my- god, is he... I- oh my god did- I-...”

Jessica looked back up at Colleen. She felt an intense need to apologize, but didn’t know what to say.

* * *

John Ohnn lay on his cot. He had not received any more visits in the night, his bruises and lacerations, overlooked by authorities of the prison who knew exactly where they came from, being given time to heal, but the experience had made him quite wary of his surroundings. No longer was John trying to fall into himself. Now, he was letting himself sleep like a normal human, ready to react to normal human stimuli, should it rear itself.

The door opened. John’s stomach dropped. It was happening again.

John’s head twitched. It was a human instinct, he knew before he turned his head that those same two guards were here again, he could see them out the holes in his side, but he turned his head anyways because his brain was still convinced that it needed to see out the front of his face.

“Shit. He’s awake.”

Well, there was no use pretending now. John sat up and turned and got to his feet. The two guards flinched back.

“Please,” he said. “Don’t-”

One of the guards drew his baton and hit John across the temple and knocked him to the ground. He only barely managed to catch himself on his hands and knees.

No time for rest was given. Immediately boots, sharp, painful boots, cracked down against John’s back, his elbows, his head, his head bounced painfully off of the floor. Blood trickled down his forehead. Reminder of humanity. John was still human. John was still, painfully human.

He lashed out, like a human, not with space like he would have liked but with his limbs. An arm wrapped around the leg of one of the guards and pulled and shoved until he was sent spilling to the ground. John then shoved with his shoulders, he pushed the other one back until he could get to his feet.

He looked down at the guard on the floor. Approached him. Something boiled in John’s stomach, but before it could come to anything, the other one pounced. Got his baton around John’s throat and pulled, pulled his windpipe shut.

John gasped. Did he still need to breathe? John wasn’t sure. He certainly felt like he needed to. Blackness swam at the corners of his vision, not the calming blackness of his holes to nothing, this was a nothing that would truly encapsulate him, wrap him up until there was nothing left. With his quite human instincts, John knew he needed to fight this blackness with everything he had. His hands went up, struggled and ultimately failed to push the baton from his throat.

“Curtis! Curtis no! Come on, let’s just hit the alarm and get out of here!”

“No!” Curtis yelled back. “No, I’ll handle this freak!”

That almost made John laugh, or perhaps it would have had he the breath to spare, which he certainly didn’t. If he were to die here, it would be pretty pathetic of him, he believed.

His hands were doing nothing on the baton. So instead he sent one of them up, up above the heads of both him and his assailant. It was hard to muster the coordination, more than half of his vision was black now, 50% of the way towards infinity. With hand perched there, quite shakily, he traced a circle.

John was not allowed to create holes in this prison, it was expressly forbidden and kept under threat of physical punishment. So it was almost relieving, almost a breath of fresh air in itself, when John was finally able to see again from an angle other than himself.

John brought his hand back down, it had one more important job to do. He commanded it curl, tighten into a fist, and then he sent it flying into his own face. Through the hole there and out the hole above his head, his knuckles cracked into the head of Curtis. He was stunned. His grip loosened. John broke free and could breathe again. Air sucked through every hole in his body, filled his lungs to capacity.

John took a second to compose himself, then turned back to Curtis. He was just regaining his bearings himself, and John truly didn’t want that, so he punched him again. In the face, again. With the hand that was not to punch him, he grabbed Curtis by the shoulder and shoved him against the wall behind him and then he punched him again. And again. And again. As hard as John could swing his arm he swung it into the face of the man who had just tried to kill him.

But John was not so preoccupied as to forget that Curtis had a partner. And in fact, if John could boast for a moment, with another hole taking up the space in the room with him, he fell right back into his reflex of watching the movements of the entire room at once. John saw, while he continued to wale on Curtis, saw his partner reach for his belt and draw his gun. John saw the space of the gun, the pieces and parts that made it up, and saw the exact angle of the barrel and saw where precisely the bullet would fly. And so John moved his hand to fill that space and with his finger he drew a small circle, no wider than 2 inches in diameter. And he saw the bullet fly through space and he felt the bullet fly through _his_ space and it flew out of the hole on his face and drilled Curtis between the eyes.

Curtis slumped to the floor. John watched as his heart slowed to a stop.

“Shit. Shit!” The remaining guard pressed his back against the opposite wall.

Well, Curtis was providing no more immediate problems. John turned and walked towards the one who was alive.

The guard raised his gun again, but his finger hesitated over the trigger. Quite gently, John pushed the man’s arm away and let him panic and fire into the ground next to John instead of into John.

“If you would not mind, I would appreciate this.” John pulled the pistol from his grasp. He did not meet much resistance. Perhaps this one was in shock.

“I didn’t- It wasn’t- I- I- I-”

“Yes, I believe I understand. By his aggressive actions, I assume our dear friend Curtis was the one who spearheaded this little venture.” He gestured to Curtis’ limp body to show who he was talking about. “He seemed like a very fearful and, if I may say, very violent fellow. Perhaps he was afraid that I would, ah, stage some sort of violent prison break using my abilities, and kill him along with other guards in the process. That’s ironic, don’t you think?” He pressed the gun to his temple, let a hole swallow the muzzle, and then fired and a bullet shot from his face again and hit Curtis’ friend, or at least co-worker, in the approximate same spot. He slumped to the ground as well.

John did not usually use guns, one might believe that he was above it or at least considered himself to be above it, but truthfully the option had simply never come up. But now that he had one, it felt quite nice, he would hold onto it for now. Tuck it in the waistband of his pants.

John looked down at the closest body, looked and saw and found the card he kept on his person. And then he looked and found Curtis’ and walked over and grabbed that one as well. He found the spot that would read a card from this side of the plastic and drew a circle over it and then moved to the other side of the door where its partner reader was and drew a circle over that one and while he placed Curtis’ card to the one nearest him, he also put his co-worker’s card through the hole and to the other reader.

The door unlocked and John was free to roll it open. But before he left, now, all these holes simply wouldn’t do, he would be inviting suspicion with those lying around. So he went, one by one and grabbed each hole left in the room and closed them back up but before he left, he drew one tiny hole, smaller than the width of his finger, on the underside of his cot.

But that was that, and John was free to take his first steps back outside the cell and to leave this prison for now.

Though he might have to shoot a few more people to get there.


	4. Day 0

John ran. He wasn’t much of a runner to be quite frank, but it was the thing to do. As soon as he made it past the prison’s walls he sprinted and didn’t look back. Then after a minute or so of that he fell into a jog and could only keep that up for another few adrenaline-pushed limits before stopping altogether and grabbing his knees.

John wheezed, huffed, he panted, he had to stop to catch his breath. Lacking a mouth or nose with which to properly breath like a human, air was sucked through the holes along his body. All of them. John was well used to this by now, it wasn’t something he really stopped to think about anymore. A phenomenon that John was unfamiliar with, however, is he could feel air being sucked into the hole he had left behind in his cell. That was odd, John was well used to the manner in which he now breathed air, but he hadn’t ever been able to breath through the holes he left in space. Or, not that he could remember at least. But he had also never been this out of breath before. He was, as said before, not much of a runner.

Curious. This was curious. John would have to keep that in mind.

He forced himself to return to the moment though. He was, after all, still on the run. Still in trouble. Still, despite it all, a mortal in mortal danger.

John turned back. Looked into the distance as far as he could make out. But he saw nothing. It was hard to see around the cell, but the bodies were still where he’d left them.

He still had a bit of time. No need to rush things now. Rush, panic, and he would get sloppy. No, no let’s take this nice and easy. There was no need to be afraid. After all, though he may still be mortal, he still was not quite human. And on that thought John rested his stability.

He continued away from the prison, but now he did not run. It was a leisurely walk, a stroll as he let his aching legs take a rest, of a sort, it would be enough. And as he went, he began to draw circles in the air. He tried to keep them large, large enough for himself to maneuver through at least, but a great many would be there just to allow him to keep an eye on things. This was the part John was looking forward to the most.

* * *

Jessica Jones sat at her desk, typing at her computer. Matt, Luke, and Colleen watched her, waiting for her to do anything else. She just wanted to make sure she had everything ready, and wasn’t about to be spectacularly wrong.

“So uh, what are we doing here?” Matt asked.

“Talking about shit...” This should be fine. “I looked up the name you guys gave us, Daniel Berkhart.”

“Find anything?” Luke asked.

“Yeah, he’s got a bit of history that you might be interested in knowing.”

Jessica pulled up a video, hit play, and spun her laptop around. Luke and Colleen leaned in to watch.

“Oh my god!” Colleen put a hand to her mouth. “Oh my god!”

“Someone might need to describe this to me,” Matt said.

“...Severed head,” said Luke.

The lines on Matt’s forehead tightened. “What?”

“It’s a severed head.”

The voice of a stern and gruff man came from the laptop. “Cause of death?”

A second voice answered it, this one belonging to a young, but professional woman. “I think it’s obvious.”

“No, they want it to seem obvious. Big difference.”

There was an auditory sting and flashes of violent images. Spattered blood, a raised knife, dark bathtubs full of black liquid. Then was footage of a guy in a big brown coat walking down a well lit hallway with a woman in a black pants suit.

“What is this?” Luke mouthed.

Jessica motioned for him to keep watching.

“We’ve got a serial killer on our hands,” came a voice disconnected from the two people talking.

“Who would want to start something in a small town like this?” asked a second, unrelated disconnected voice.

“What are you going to do about this?” asked the pants suit woman.

“Whatever I have to,” said the brown coat man.

“Whoever’s doing this knows the police are after him, he’s toying with us.”

“He’s bound to slip up somewhere. No one’s that good.”

Another sting, more images. The footage settled on a man’s face in the dark, staring quietly into the camera.

“I welcome the challenge,” he said.

The screen went to a smoky texture before words flew onto the screen. ‘The River’s Secrets’ ‘Tuesdays @ 8 PM’ ‘Only on TBS’.

Luke blinked. Colleen blinked. Matt’s eyes couldn’t be seen behind his dark glasses, but he still gave pause.

“Well,” Luke started. “I’m glad you found a new show.”

“Yeah, yeah...” Colleen said. “What was that?”

Jessica sighed. “The guy, Berkhart, he’s uh... he’s a Hollywood asshole.”

“An actor?” Matt asked.

“I think he wanted to be. Looking over his IMDB, 2 acting credits, couple of student films I’ve never heard of, and a dozen credits for practical effects on various daytime dramas. The head at the beginning. He did that.”

“The hell?” Colleen had her phone pulled out. “He did the effects for the Captain America mini-series?”

“Yep. He was working in LA right up until the snap happened. Was on a production that had to cancel cause of that shit. Then he disappears, and his name doesn’t crop up in the public eye until... now.”

“Weird.”

“So,” Luke said. “What does this mean?”

Jessica looked at him, looked at Colleen, looked at Matt, each one waiting and watching her.

“Nothing. Doesn’t mean anything cause that’s all done. Just thought you’d wanna know who tried to have you all killed is all.”

“You sure?” Matt said. “He’s still out there somewhere, we might want to try and track him down before he tries something else.”

“His goons are all in jail, his secret hideout is busted, and all of his property has been taken by the state of New York. What else is he going to do?”

Jessica could feel his gaze boring into her, which was a weird feeling to get from a blind man. She’d been careful to not let a lie slip in there, about what had happened.

“If you say so,” he eventually said. “Thanks for the heads up then.”

With that he turned and left the apartment. Jessica could hear his cane tapping along the floor on the way back to the elevator.

Colleen nodded. “Thanks Jess. Sorry it uh... well, thanks.” With that she turned and left as well.

Luke watched the two of them leave. And he didn’t. He turned to look at Jessica.

“Are you sure?”

She blinked. “About what.”

“That Berkhart’s gone. That this is all over.”

Jessica looked back at him. Luke Cage, the quiet one. He had a way about him, made Jess feel like he could see right through everything she did.

She sighed, then gave a nod. “I’m sure,” she said quietly.

He gave her a second. Then nodded back. “If you say it’s so, then it’s so.”

“...Yeah. Obviously.”

“You did good. Finding all this out so fast. Always finding new ways to impress.”

“Thanks. I mean it wasn’t that hard, just took a solid internet connection and 4 hours of sleep.”

“How about you get some more of that then.”

“That’s the plan. That and drink all of this behind me.”

“I mean it, by the way. You did really good. We wouldn’t have gotten any of this done without you.”

Jessica just nodded. Just nodded.

“I’ll catch you later?”

“Yeah. It might be a good time, if neither of us are working.”

Luke gave a chuckle and then turned and left as well. Jessica was left alone in her apartment. Another done case. Another dead body. How the hell did she always end up feeling worse when they weren’t her fault.

* * *

John sat at the bottom of a chilly pond. He had found, in this experiment, that while he was good at passively taking in a lot of information at once, focusing on actively performing multiple actions at once was much, much harder. When he had first dipped a foot into the water, he realized the hole on his arch would quickly drain the pond as water began to pour from one of the holes he kept floating in the air around him. So, while submerged, he had to make sure that all of the holes on his body led to other holes on his body. But, however, while he was doing that, he was also focusing on taking in air from a hole that wasn’t on his body, pulling that air directly into him and bypassing the holes on his physical body altogether. Though, to be clear, he still would have to exhale carbon dioxide from that same hole.

John was, in short, on the precipice of underwater breathing. It would take quite a bit of practice to accomplish. For the third time since he started this, John fell back on the reflex of breathing through his face and sucked in some scummy pond water and immediately paddled to the surface and coughed it back up.

That was probably enough practice for today.

He clawed back onto the muddy bank by the pond and shook himself off. Let what drips of water remained fall through his holes and hit the ground somewhere else. Back at his camp, under a shady tree and by the thin mattress he kept on a plastic tarp and under a canopy, a white towel was waiting for him. He went over the last of the water still clinging to him and then redressed in the white underclothes and orange jumpsuit that the prison had provided for him. While such state of dress would certainly do something for his dignity, the jumpsuit was useful for keeping him warm at night even without covers.

The penitentiary was surrounded by 5 miles of woodland in every direction. There was a road that would lead one out back towards the closest city, but John wasn’t interested in that. Not yet. He spent his days wandering around the woods, heading towards nowhere in particular, well, except for, his target was usually somewhere he hadn’t been. As he walked he would draw circles, make holes in his path, he would leave a trail of them behind him like breadcrumbs.

Of course the guards and local police quickly realized this, they tried to use them to follow his path, and usually when that happened, John would draw one last circle and step through it and appear somewhere else in his little trail entirely, usually on the other side of the compound. And he would continue his walk somewhere else where he wouldn’t be disturbed.

Then at night, he would rest his tired legs and shift his focus to inside the penitentiary. The process for nights was a lot slower than the process he took during the days. It was rhythmic, mechanical, it was almost a quite boring process, but John could find something to appreciate in how repetitive it became. How it worked is that he would sit down, and put a hole in front of him, and then he would reach into that hole, and he would expand a hole in the prison, from wherever he had left off last, and poke a finger through that hole, and draw a small hole in front of it, then close the hole his finger had come through as small as he could make it. Then he would maneuver his finger back in out through the hole he had just made and the process would repeat itself.

With this method he had gone out from his cell and into the prison’s ventilation and all throughout the complex without being noticed by a soul. He had a specific goal – a destination, in mind to make sure he could access first, which was the mail room, but keeping an eye on the entirety of the prison, and making sure that he had holes ready to go everywhere, was equally if not moreso important. It was also, if he would be allowed to speak on behalf of his own comfort for a moment, exceptionally convenient to be able to grab and take objects of comfort from around the prison. Like some sort of house fairy spiriting away such things in the night. That was an enjoyable thought, picturing himself in such a fanciful light.

Though his work was methodical, it was also slow. Tonight, he was going to try and make it across the recess yard. If he could make it to the window 20 feet over the basketball hoop in the yard, and more importantly get it open and move through it, he could skip 4 doors and a flight of stairs.

John in that moment allowed his mind to wander. Or, rather, no, it wasn’t his mind wandering, it was his attention, his consciousness wandered and took in what sights it, or he, could see around.

The prison guards had been sent out again to look for him. On many a night, quite like this, John could watch them stumble and wander in vain attempts to find him. He could see the fear clutch at their hearts, wandering through the woods at night, the way only lit by a flashlight and surrounded on all sides by extensions of John’s power. That was always fun, always worth the time. Tonight however, they’d gotten lucky. By random chance, they were wandering in the same direction as John, straight towards him. They would not come to his location for another 20... 18 minutes maximum. But he couldn’t be here while they were. As fun as it was to watch the guards in their fear, it was a lot less fun when they actually had a chance in succeeding in their goal.

So John sighed an impossible sigh, began to pack up his ramshackle campsite, found a nice, quiet spot on the opposite side of the prison, drew a large hole and stepped through to it. Having to make his bed again meant that he likely wasn’t making it to that window tonight. And that was a shame. But there was always tomorrow.

* * *

Colleen was perched on the roof of a two-story strip mall. Kept in the dark, above the street lamps that cast a dull orange down on the empty pavement below.

Though she was less so perched and more, seated. She sat on the lip of the building, dangling and idly swinging her legs off the side. She tried to focus on the city streets, tried to keep her senses open to signs of danger, things that she, the Iron Fist, should deal with.

It was hard to take her mind off of that image though. The thought of Berkhart. Bleeding. Gasping. Fading. That gash across his chest. That was awful.

“Hey.”

Colleen jumped. “Oh, Jesus! Matt!”

Daredevil stood behind her. For a split second she was afraid he was there to kick her teeth in. But, no, he seemed pretty chill. At the moment at least.

“Sorry. D- Daredevil? DD? Double-D?”

He stared at- through her. “Just Matt is fine.”

“So, hey, what’s up? Did you need something?” She thought about it for a second. “Wait how did you find me?”

“Heard you.”

“Heard me, what?”

“Thinking.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Conscious thoughts aren’t – entirely internal. There are tiny spasms of muscle in the throat that synchronize with – vocalize what you’re thinking.”

“And you heard that!?”

He stared. “Not at first.”

“Holy shit. Does that mean you can hear people’s thoughts?”

“No. But I could hear that you were thinking pretty hard about something.”

“Christ.” Colleen rubbed her eyes.

Matt walked over. Colleen didn’t even hear his boots crunch against the roof’s gravel. He shuffled off the edge of the building and sat on the lip next to her. “If it’s something better suited for a confessional, I know a guy who’s good with this kind of thing.”

“No. No. It’s just – you ever feel like you really, really messed something up? And someone got hurt cause of it?”

There was something unnerving about those never blinking eyes. Colleen knew Matt, she could tell he was trying to be sympathetic. But every contemplative pause felt like he was looking into her soul. Even when he wasn’t even looking at her.

“Is this about Danny?” he asked.

“Danny?” Colleen started. “Uh- Yeah! Yeah, Danny!”

Okay that time he probably did mean to give her a stare.

“Well, okay. Truth be told, things aren’t going over great with him either.”

“Have you guys seen each other? Since, you know...”

“No,” Colleen sighed. “He’s coming back soon but... New York is such a different place these days.”

“I don’t think that’s the reason you’re so nervous.”

“Nervous? Who said I was nervous?”

“Your heartrate speeds up every time you talk about him.”

“Maybe I should just go to a confessional.”

He put his hands up. The slightest of smiles played at his lips. “No judgement. We’re just two friends, sitting on a roof, talking about our lives.”

“Well, I don’t know.” Colleen rubbed her face. “He asked me if we were still together.”

“And what’d you say?”

“I... hung up on him.”

“Oof.”

“Yeah. Yeah.” Colleen sighed. “I mean I don’t – I don’t know. I guess, probably, New York isn’t a different place. I’m just, the same. And everything else changed around me.”

Matt didn’t have anything to say to that. Colleen had the suspicion that she might’ve hit something sensitive in him too.

“You know I was – I was reading an article the other day. Some like personal story about a guy whose wife got blipped. I think they split up at the end of it. The point of it though was that, it was hard to tell who had it worse. The guy lived 5 years. 5 years. His wife was dead. And he just had to live through that.

“But ya know, the wife comes back. And obviously he’s overjoyed to see her again. But there’s so much baggage there. He’s treating her like she just came back from war. To her, all that happened is she passed out for a second and now all the sudden her husband’s clinging to her like the world’s ending. And, like, yeah there was this part in the middle about how he’d had renovations done on the house while she was gone. She comes back, everything around her looks different, everyone around her feels different. That gap is just – so wide.”

Matt nodded. “I understand.”

“It’s like – It’s like the world got split in half. I don’t even know how to talk to somehow who stuck around during that time. Let alone someone who I- who we knew so well before it happened.”

Matt swallowed. “It’s... my job to talk to people. To know people.”

“Is it? I guess you do get up and close and personal when you’re punching them.”

“I meant my dayjob.”

“Oh. That’s right you’re like, a lawyer or something?”

“Yes. I’m a criminal law trial lawyer. That means it’s my job to understand and represent, to the best of my abilities, not only the situation as I understand it but my client’s perspective as well. Motivations, impulses, the cogs working in the background that ultimately led to the point where they’re at now. As you’d expect, half of the people I talk to were around during the blip. Half weren’t. I didn’t... really have a choice when it came to this kind of thing.”

“Okay. Cool?”

“What I’m trying to say is, that feeling of disconnect. Maybe it’s worth it to just, muscle your way through it. Nobody’s on sides in this, we’re all just trying to navigate the situation. Whatever it is.”

“Yeah, maybe... But man, I really don’t want to.”

He gave her a pat on the shoulder. Though his expression didn’t soften or drop or anything. “You’ll do what you have to do. You’re a good person. Selfless as they come.”

Colleen raised an eyebrow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Quiet. She was really starting to hate how hard Matt was to read when he was in costume.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about probability,” he said.

“Huh?”

Matt sighed. Maybe even he was getting cold feet about this conversation.

“When the snap happened... every person had a 50/50 chance of... staying or leaving. I can’t hate myself for... what happened. I can’t blame myself for not being there. There was a 50% chance that I couldn’t be there. But that’s a 25% chance of both of us leaving. 12% that Luke doesn’t make it. 6% that Jessica doesn’t either. 6 percent. Imagine that. 100 times that the snap happens, it only turns out the way it did 6 of those times. That’s insane, why did that have to be what we were stuck with?”

“Yeah, I – I guess.”

“But you think about it another way, 50% of earth’s population, that’s an absurd amount. Entire countries could be wiped off the map without denting that. All of New York wouldn’t amount to 1% of the population. Maybe it only makes sense that 4 people in the whole city didn’t make it. Maybe it makes sense that we wouldn’t get any kind of special treatment.”

“I... guess...?”

“But then, if the population was split arbitrarily in half, then any groups would also be split in half. Every group would be split in half. High school student bodies, congress, the bowling club on 5th. Why weren’t we the same way? Why didn’t we get half, why did we lose everyone?”

“...Okay, you’ve lost me.”

“My point is that I’ve been going in circles and circles about this, ever since I came back. I feel like maybe I could rest easy if at least one of us got left behind, if one of us could help keep things safe during that time. But we were all gone. No Defenders, and no Avengers, and there was nothing I could do and I just feel so...”

“Incapable?”

“...Yeah. Something like that.”

“I mean, I think Captain America moved back in during the blip. Even if he didn’t have backup.”

Matt huffed. “Cap doesn’t live here. Maybe he sleeps in Manhattan but the second some planetary threat rears his head, he’s off in the... Capmobile.”

Colleen snickered. “Cap-plane?”

“Cap Dune Buggy.” That one got a rare smile from Matt. “I don’t think Captain America is what this city needs. Or needed.”

“I don’t want to pass judgement.” She shrugged. “We don’t really know the guy.”

“Yeah. Maybe. I just-”

“You feel like shit cause you were dead for 5 years when you’ve built your whole life around being there for people in need. I get that. We all get that. That’s how all of us are feeling.”

“I wish there was something I could’ve done.”

“Yeah. Me too.” A twinge twinged in Colleen’s brain. She wondered if she hadn’t got snapped, if she would’ve ended up killing a guy 5 years ago instead. But, no, she pushed that thought out of her head. “The only thing you can do in a situation like this is keep moving forward. That’s what I was always taught.”

“Yeah. Hard to keep moving forward when you’re also trying to catch up.”

She gave him a pat on the shoulder right back. “One foot at a time Murdock. We don’t gotta save the world in one night. Or in one year. Or at all. Leave that to the Avengers, right?”

“...Right.” He stood up.

“Danger calls?”

“Mugging. 6 blocks down. Shouldn’t need more than one of us to stop.”

“But if we both show up, he might shit his pants.”

Matt had to force himself not to smile at that one.

* * *

Knock knock knock.

Luke Cage looked up. Tore his eyes away from the smooth jazz performance happening down on the dance floor and up towards the door of his office. He didn’t have any appointments today. Wasn’t expecting anyone, at least not anyone who would come straight to him.

“Come in?” he said?

The door opened. And there stood Jessica Jones, in her torn jeans and scuffed jacket and everything.

His shoulders untensed. Gave a bit of a chuckle in relief.

“Hey Jess,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

She sighed. “I’m just looking for good booze and cheap company... Sorry, got that backwards.”

“Well, I can only guarantee one of those things.”

“It’s a package deal, Cage. Either you provide both or I’m walking to O’Neal’s for tonight.”

“Fine. Pull up a seat.” He motioned to the cushy chairs in front of his desk, and Jess didn’t hesitate for a second pulling it out and plopping down.

Luke meanwhile, stood up and looked over the shelf of alcohol on the far wall. “What are you in the mood for? Champagne? Vodka?”

“Anything with a high percentage.”

“You sick of bourbon yet?”

“Yes. Give me some.”

Luke grabbed a bottle of George T. Stagg, might as well splurge a little so long as he was with friends, and a pair of whiskey glasses. A large ice cube in each. He filled Jessica’s up a little higher than his own.

“You know,” Jessica said. “I don’t think I’ve ever asked. How the hell did _you_ end up with this place? Weren’t you living out of an apartment like last year?”

“It’s uh...” Luke sat back down with drinks in hand. Slid Jessica’s over to her. “It’s complicated.”

Jess started shooting her drink. “Well shit. I hate complicated stories.”

“You remember Mariah Dillard?”

“Uhf... vaguely? Wasn’t she... a district attorney or something?”

“She was on the city council.”

“Yeah, I don’t really follow politics.”

“She tried to kill me.”

“Oh. Well. Sorry and shit.”

“It’s fine,” Luke gave a soft smile. “It didn’t take.”

“So, she tried to kill you. And then she gave you a fancy nightclub.”

“That’s the complicated part.”

“What’s complicated about it.”

“I don’t know why she did it.”

“Ah.” Jessica polished off her glass.

“Maybe she just accepted defeat. Or maybe it’s all a trick. Or maybe – maybe she agrees with everyone else. That I’ve changed.”

“Do you think that you’ve changed.”

“...I don’t know. Sometimes I think maybe I have. Sometimes I think maybe I’m second guessing myself.”

“Yeah, hate that.”

“Do you think I’ve changed?”

“Luke, I haven’t talked to you since like the ninja thing. I don’t know.”

“Hmm...” Luke sipped at his own drink.

Jessica sighed and shifted in her seat. “I mean, okay. Why do you think that you’ve changed. Or, why do you think other people think that you’ve changed.”

Luke, didn’t need to think about that. He stopped as if he was about to think about it, but in truth he only wished it was complicated enough to warrant deep thought. Why had he changed? “I like the superhero thing. I really do. You’ll never catch me admitting it outside of this room, and I hate the whole... culture that’s around it now. But people started calling me that because I was a guy with powers who cared about his neighborhood and wanted to stand up to the people fucking it up. But, there’s only so far that gets you. I can block a bullet, but what does that actually... mean? They can’t shoot me, but they can arrest me, they can take away what I own, they can hurt the people I care about.”

“You don’t need to tell me that these fucking powers are overrated, I’m already on your side.”

“The first time I actually tried to do something with my powers. To be someone. Can’t believe it looking back on it now. But it just ended up being this – this pissing contest. I messed with him, he messed with me, people got hurt. People – well, it’s embarrassing to think about now. To say the least. But I thought back then that these powers made me invincible, unstoppable, and that’s just not the case.”

“You can bench whatever you want and that doesn’t have anything to do with – how society carries on from day to day. Like this shit’s only good for fighting, and nobody wants to start a fight. Why would they.”

“If I want to keep helping people, help people beyond just showing up to a shootout and taking up as much room as possible, I need to negotiate with the people who are ultimately behind it all. I need to be on their level to have any, actual leverage. To actually be able to do something about them. To get on their level, I need money, I need connections, I need the status. And those are things I can only get from a place like this.”

“And you think that being on that level means you’re just going to turn into one of them.”

“...Kind of, yeah.”

“I mean, I get it. Shit like that’s why I said fuck it to this whole, damn thing.”

Luke put his cheek on his fist. “I don’t think I have it in me to say fuck it.”

“Yeah, well, you’re a good person,” she muttered.

“Thanks.” He gave a small smile. “You know, when I – when we got back. After the whole, you know.”

“I know.”

“When I heard that this place got snatched out right from under me, that panic hit me harder than learning that I’d been gone for five years. The thought of having to start over from square one, I didn’t know if I could. Worst thing about it is, I think maybe I still have to anyways. I didn’t have a say in any of this, and even when I’ve got it all, feels like I still somehow managed to lose all my respect, connections, and standing anyways.”

Jessica’s brow furrowed. She stared intently into her empty glass.

“Well,” she eventually said with a shrug. “If you do end up turning into an asshole, I mean, I’m already used to it. Story of my fucking life, everyone around me just turning to dickbags.”

“You know that’s more sad than supportive.”

“Yeah, I know. Hey you got any more of this stuff.”

“Sure.” Luke poured her another glass. “So... this Mysterio business is wrapped up and done with, yeah?”

“Really hoping so.”

“What about Kara?”

“What _about_ Kara.”

“She up and vanished, didn’t she? Everything’s all squared away, except we don’t know where she is or what she’s doing.”

Jessica sighed. “Look, I have my reasons for thinking that she’s done with all this. But the real shit is, that I just don’t want to deal with her. Or her dad. Or that whole, cursed fucking family ever again. I’m saying fuck it while I can.”

“Alright.”

“Alright.” Jess started drinking.

“...But...”

“...But. Kara seemed really disappointed when I found the bombs in the basement. She said I wasn’t supposed to. I think probably she wanted me dead then. I think the fact that I made it out means that whatever she had planned fell through and we’re done here.”

“You think or you hope?”

“Same difference.”

“Well, Jessica Jones, in that case, cheers to a job well done.”

He raised his glass. Jessica half-heartedly clinked it and drank more.

Only after the fact did she actually say “Cheers.”

“So... other than that, how have things been?”

“Really.”

“Genuine question.”

“Your conversational skills are as smooth as ever.”

“You saying getting the club hasn’t helped me improve?”

“...It’s been – ya know. The usual. Followed around some assholes all day, took pictures of them having sex, got paid and then yelled at.”

“Quite the busy schedule you keep, Ms. Jones.”

“Yeah, well, we can’t all live up in your ivory club towers. Some of us still have to work for a living.”

“Ouch.” He gave a smile. “That hurts, Jess.”

“Then I know I’ve still got my edge.”

* * *

John woke, slowly, quietly. A step at a time. Sunlight filtered down through the leaves over his head, but, now that he was thinking about it, he didn’t really have the instinct to “rise with the sun” anymore. After all, the human brain responds to light collected by the eyes, and though his brain and body may be human still, eyes were things that he no longer possessed, so any light he collected through his space would bypass the brain’s check that would wake it.

Well, in either case, it was a regular schedule and the sounds of people moving about that woke him up. Not the light.

He sat up with a stretch, took a deep breath, and started looking over everything. Saw the morning shift guards taking over for the graveyard shift guards, some of the prisoners stirred awake bright and early, several more would stay asleep for a few more hours. The mail had come in, communications with the state of New York made up the bulk of it, but taking up more space were several prisoner packages including...

Oh, wow. Really? John had supposed he had been waiting for a while now, but he didn’t quite expect it to be today. All of the sudden he wondered if he was prepared for this. If he should’ve done more to get ready, physically or mentally. He certainly hadn’t been able to get as far into the prison as he would’ve liked, but things wouldn’t exactly fall apart if he went now.

No, no his instructions were quite clear. Today was the day. It needed to be done now.

John stood and stretched. He had to be loose. He had to be ready. No room for error today. A few deep breaths to calm his nerves. Focus. Focus. Focus. Be in the moment. Be everywhere.

John drew a small circle in front of him, as small as he could make it.

Then he took hold of it.

It took some digging, he had to scrape and claw to get a finger in. And he tugged on the side to make it bigger. He managed to shove a finger from his other hand in. And he wrenched the circle apart.

And, as he was doing so, he was also reaching into his mind and connecting this hole to every hole he had created across the prison, in the past weeks’ worth of work. The air was suddenly filled with blank space. _John’s_ blank space.

There was a moment of silence. Everyone looked up from whatever it was they were doing, looked to try and understand what the brain could only make out as movement and changing color in their vision, looked to attempt to comprehend the incomprehensible.

And then the alarms went off. John laughed to himself. It was the response he expected but it was still funny.

Well, he wasn’t just out to cause a mass panic. Time to get to work.

John stepped through the hole in front of him and stepped out the hole in the mail room. Specifically the hole behind the guard that had sorting through mail at the time. John wondered if the man would’ve noticed him if it weren’t for the blaring sirens and giant holes in space over his head. No, wait, he spun, John supposed he wanted to look at all of the holes, which was understandable, he supposed.

In either case, John was already in the process of tipping the nearest cabinet over onto his head, which if it didn’t knock him out would certainly inconvenience him long enough for John to get what he needed and leave.

The cabinet hit the man and then the ground with a loud crash. And already he was struggling to get it off of him, so obviously it was the latter.

John walked over to the bench where sat a long box, over 3 feet, wrapped in UPS brown. He grabbed this box, tucked it under his arm, then left the room. And after he did, he made sure those holes would only point to themselves, for the fun of it. The guard would certainly try to chase when he finally freed himself, perhaps some Scooby Doo hijinks would lighten his mood.

John’s next destination was the cell of one Carl Burbank. Shared by some brat named Ricky Calusky. John did not pay him more mind than needed. He stepped out of the hole, into the cell. Carl stepped off of his bunk and was immediately standing at attention. Ricky was just staring slack-jawed.

“Package for you,” John said.

“Do you have the escape routes set?”

“I should, but we still need to collect the other one. And his gear.”

“What about the safe room?”

There were 5 guards rushing in his direction, moments away from rounding the corner and being in eyeline. Guns were already being drawn. How’d they know where to- ah, yes, he could see himself on the security screens. These boys were coordinated.

“There is a better time and place to discuss this than here and now.” He gestured to the hole behind him.

Carl grunted something akin to an agreement and brushed past and through. John gave a polite nod to Ricky and followed him. Just in time, the guards burst around the corner. Ricky scrambled to follow them, so John sent him off to the mess hall. In less than a second he was pinned to the ground by his neck.

John and Carl stepped out into the guards’ changing room. John opened a locker and grabbed a baton that had been left behind when someone clocked out last night and he took that and jammed it into the door. Keep it from opening, for now at least.

Carl looked at him. Nudged the package with his foot.

John sighed. “Must I do everything around here?”

John of course already knew what was inside the package, and reasonably Carl should as well, or at least have a strong idea, he supposed he wouldn’t have the means to know for certain but to know beyond a reasonable doubt- Well, John tore the package open anyways to confirm it. A long, plastic case. Opening it up revealed a set of flesh-colored prosthetic arms.

John grabbed one. The left one. “Is there some method to getting this on, or...”

“Just slot it over the stump here.” He reached over and grabbed the tied off sleeve of his orange jumpsuit with his teeth and tore and a second later John could see the stump he referred to.

A sharp banging came from the door. These people certainly worked quickly. A new cavalcade of guards were attempting to bust the door down, without the proper tools no less. Simply ramming their shoulders into the thing.

John still wasn’t sure he was doing this quite right, he had never been one for engineering. But, he put the cup of the arm over the stump, pressed it in, and the arm seemed content to do the rest. It clamped onto Carl’s shoulder and then started to move. Carl lifted the hand, flexed the fingers, tested the joints. Things were going well.

“Go grab the dumbass,” he said. “I can get the other one.”

“Alright.” John left him to it, but did still keep some of his eyes on him, saw him grab the other arm out of the case and slot it on. It wasn’t that John wasn’t trusting, but, ah, well, perhaps John just wasn’t trusting. He poked his head through the hole and came out in the cell of Joss Shappe (shared with one Peter Petruski). And there he found Shappe lying on his bunk with a pillow over his face while Peter pressed his face into the bars to try and see what was happening.

“Shappe,” John said. “Shappe, get up. It’s time to go.”

“Oof,” Shappe groaned back. “Can we go tomorrow? I’m feeling really under it right now, sorry.”

“My, you are useless.” John stepped out and moved to haul Shappe if he had to.

Peter looked had to double take, looking back to see what Shappe was doing, looking back through the bars in case he missed something, looking back as he just now noticed the spotted man taking Shappe out of his bunk and over his shoulder.

“Ah, I am sorry Mr. Petruski,” John said once he got Shappe into something approximating a standing position. “But I’m afraid you won’t be coming with.”

John, with Shappe over his shoulder moved to hobble back through his hole in the wall, but, uhm, something was wrong. It took him a moment, a tingling up the back of his spine sent him into a panic, he began to check everywhere he could think of, the guards station, the changing room Carl was hunkered down in, the bus depot, the confiscated items room. Each look wasn’t much more of a glance, a fraction of a fraction of a second, definitely not enough time to actually absorb any information.

No, he wasn’t quite sure what exactly was wrong, and each instance that passed only increased his panic moreso. He wasn’t sure, that is, until, the piercing white hot pain in his arm.

The pain came first, the sound hit him second, it wasn’t until he focused his attention and looked did he realize what was happening. That the guards had acted quicker than he expected them to, and were already rushing to his position.

No time to dally then. With his good arm, he shoved Shappe’s limp body through the hole. A bullet pinged off the bars of the cell, another flew over his head. He jumped through after him.

Peter attempted to follow them, and John could not honestly blame him considering the circumstances, but he still couldn’t have him following. So Peter, instead, found himself flopping onto Ricky’s body in the mess hall and subdued just as quickly.

“You’re injured,” Carl said as he finished attaching his other arm.

“I’ll live.” John clutched at the bullet wound. Now that he wasn’t panicking as much, it was really starting to hurt.

Shappe sat up, clutching his head. “What are we still doing here, I thought we were leaving.”

Carl cuffed him over the back of the head, and he fell back down. “We still have to get your shit, idiot.”

“Yes, about that,” John started saying and then was interrupted by the sound of gunfire blasting through the locked door.

“Can it wait?”

“Perhaps.” Not long, but, “through that one.”

He pointed. Carl tossed Shappe over his shoulder and charged through, John thought about how he might like that baton before leaving, but was dissuaded from these thoughts by further gunfire tearing through the wooden door. He followed Carl instead. To a plain hallway on the west side of the prison, near the management offices.

“Where the hell are we?” Carl asked.

“I wasn’t able to make it all the way to the confiscation room. This is as close as I made it before it was time to go.”

“It’s always something isn’t it.”

“I know where it should be. Probably.” John rounded a corner and then promptly unrounded it as gunfire filled the air from the other end.

“Ah,” he said. “It seems that they may have some idea what we’re after.”

Carl grumbled a few curses as he flipped his arm to draw his pistol. John looked towards the other end of the hall as precisely as he could. It was three hallways (that part he already knew) arranged in an H-shape. John and Carl and Shappe were in one prong of the H, the one filled with holes, five guards were hunkered down in the other prong, the one that wasn’t full of holes but did contain their destination.

Well, progress had to be made somehow. Carl returned fire. John moved to help, he started to draw a circle, more holes in space were something he could always use.

Carl swat his hand out of the air with the butt of his pistol arm. “Don’t block my shot,” he said.

“Well,” John said. “Lead the way then.”

Carl ducked back. The hallway between them quickly filled back up with gunfire from the other side, though John supposed that gunfire could be few things other than quick. He spun his pistol back into a hand and then spun both hands at the same time so now both of his hands were guns.

“Give me some cover,” he said.

John pulled the gun out of his waistband, entirely unsure of what exactly to do with it. There were a couple angles he could come at this, a couple ways to utilize holes in space. But Carl was glaring at him and waiting for him to make a move. So John just stuck his hand around the corner and started firing blindly.

That was enough apparently. The guards on the other end immediately ducked back. And once the incoming bullets stopped, Carl was free to step out from behind cover and start walking forward. His sub-machine gun arm was held out and left spraying without rhyme or reason, other than giving the opposite wall the texture of a golf ball. He was not moving fast, so John had time to haul Shappe’s limp body over his shoulder and follow behind, and Carl was large enough that even now they did not risk peeking out from behind him so long as John kept his profile low and thin.

But the guards at the other end of the hall, like John, noticed a pattern in his shots, and the blind spots therein. One peeked from behind cover, coming at Carl from an angle that should have theoretically had a near zero chance of a bullet from the spray hitting them. And then, while spraying, Carl shifted his pistol hand to shoot them somewhere in the head. Possibly the chest, but not a whole lot of that had been sticking out unfortunately. Someone on the other side had the same idea, John was the one to shoot that one. Carl was busy.

Two of the guards, in what must have been a dreadful moment for them, gave up and ran. The third who decided to stay was met with a most unfortunate fate. He burst from behind cover and Carl immediately blew him away. Not with the pistol, with the sub-machine gun. John had to look away from the aftermath of that one, it was disgusting. Carl stopped to give the body a once over though, for what reason John wasn’t sure, there wasn’t really a chance that he made it looking like that.

Once he was done with that, Carl turned back to John. “Where to now?”

John pointed with his gun because it was the only free hand he had. “Down here.”

He started down the hallway, but ah, a soreness in his shoulder stopped him.

“Can you carry the sack while I lead?”

“I need both my hands.”

John sighed and shifted Shappe and took another scan of his surroundings. Those two other guards had ducked into the nearest side room. Not the one they were looking for, one of the regular filing offices, but a strong defensible position. The walls here were still made of brick. Door was locked, bullet proof glass. One of them peeked out at John through the glass, so John shot at their face. It didn’t pierce the glass of course, but it did give them a good jump. That was funny.

As John led the way he drew a few small circles in the air around him, kind of pointing his gun in willy-nilly directions while doing so, out of necessity of course.

Four doors down and they arrived at the destination. Confiscated materials. The three of them ducked in. Fortunately the door was not locked. John pondered as to why that could be. Perhaps this room was considered low security enough that it didn’t warrant proper security measures. Maybe they didn’t want any prison staff getting locked in when the rest of the prison went on lockdown. It was possible that someone had just forgotten to lock it behind them when last they left.

It didn’t really matter, but hypotheticals like these were entertaining to John.

Once safely within the room, John dumped Shappe onto the floor where he did little more than moan and groan. Carl gave him a kick. John moved to the door and, bending over and standing on his tiptoes to accomplish this, drew a wide circle around the doorway, flush against the wall. If anyone tried to barge or shoot or force their way in, they’d find themselves heading towards the westernmost tip of the surrounding treeline. Just a bit of extra security.

“Man would you get the fuck up?” Carl said.

Shappe responded with a moan that John didn’t really have the motivation to attempt to translate into English. He was already scanning through the filing system. Sanders, Saul, Schaefer, Shannon, Shappe. There it was. Wasn’t much in his shoebox of a basket, but it was hard to ignore the pair of metal boots sitting there.

“Here we are.” John pulled them out and presented the shoes. Outside there was shouting, there were clomping footsteps. Seems the cavalry had arrived.

“Wait,” Shappe’s head popped up. “They got all my shit here?”

“Unfortunately my friend, illegal paraphernalia was confiscated by the police and sent to their stash at the precinct.”

“Fuck!” Shappe let his head fall back down onto the stone floor.

“Get up!” Carl yelled. “Or we’re leaving you to die here.”

“Mr. Burbank, our orders were clearly to have all three of us there.”

“And I’ll tell him that our third was a piece of shit who can’t carry his weight, he’ll understand I’m sure.”

“I’m not so sure myself.”

“I can’t man!” Shappe writhed on the ground. “I just can’t, my head’s freakin’ exploding. There’s needles in my brain. Everything’s so heavy. I can’t do it!”

John looked down at the tantrum. “Well I’m not carrying the shoes and him.”

“Just get them on his feet,” said Carl.

That was well enough, John supposed. The boots despite being so complex to look at, seemed pretty simple to operate. They opened up and clamped down on their own. Left boot on his limp, left foot, right boot on his right. At least John thought it was simple. When putting the boots onto Shappe, he somehow, John still wasn’t sure how really, he somehow activated the thrusters and in the next second Shappe had flipped and tumbled and careened into the far wall.

“Is he dead?” John asked.

“God I hope so.”

The question was rhetorical of course, John could see his still beating heart and still active brain. The first sign of movement was a twitch of the fingers, but after that Shappe extracted himself from the dent he had formed in the stone wall.

“Whoo!” He smacked his forehead with his palm a couple times. “Yeah! Alright! I’m feeling it now, let’s do this shit.”

“You’re fucking with me,” Carl said.

“I think the phrase is ‘all’s well that ends well’,” said John.

“Let’s just get this over with.”

John shifted his attention back to the hallway and, oh my there was quite a crowd out there. A few people had been brave enough to dive through the hole blocking the entrance, and were confusedly sitting in a puddle 5 miles out. It would be a bit of a trek to get back, but they had the whole day ahead of them after all.

“If we’re all set to go then,” John drew a circle in the center of the room. The three of them stepped through. From the west side of the prison to the north. Under the shining sun. Amidst the beautiful breeze. Next to a set of garage doors. In the path of two sniper rifles. Perhaps that last point could be rectified. John shuffled over to the cover of a tall stone wall, just in time for a round to dig into the concrete where he had just been standing.

“Shappe, deal with them,” he said, drawing a circle in front of him that would lead to the base of the nearest sniper tower.

“On it.” And with a burst of air he was gone, though John heard something ping off of metal past the wall.

“Burbank, the door, if you would.”

Carl grumbled and kneeled down next to the garage door. He took the metal padlock that kept the garage sealed tight in his hand and squeezed it until it more resembled a crushed soda can, then yanked it off and lifted the garage door open.

Inside was, and of course John already knew this, he could see into the garage the whole time, inside was a fleet of prison buses lined up and pointed towards the exit.

“Did you get the keys?” Carl asked.

“Ah, knew I forgot something.” John slipped a hand under his shirt and stuck his hand through a hole in his chest. That hand came out in one of the administrative offices, abandoned now as the entire prison was in a state of emergency. Along the key rack his fingers danced until he found a set of car keys and snatched those off of the ring and pulled them back out into his hand. The tag on it read 1509.

1509, 1509. John could see the paint numbers on the sides of the bus, no matter which angle it was he looked from, so he found bus 1509 rather quickly. It was in the front line, which was perfect but also expected and planned for. A twist of the keys and bus 1509 opened up. And then he handed those keys off to Carl.

Carl took the keys without question and got behind the steering wheel. The engine roared to life, the headlights lit up. And with a foot on the accelerator the tires squealed and shot the two of them out of the garage and onto the main road. John looked up as they approached, saw Shappe jump from one of the guard towers and in a burst of air suddenly appear on the one across from it. Already in the process of clubbing the sniper with the other guy’s rifle.

“Hold on to something,” Carl said.

John didn’t even get out a grunt of confusion when a sudden impact sent him sprawling to the ground. He realized, only at this moment, that the bus had rammed the front gates, which had still been locked. This was why Carl was the one driving, John was terrible at keeping his focus on the road.

With the nearest snipers taken care of, Shappe slid back down the ladder, going as fast as he could without – well, without getting too far into dangerous, injury-causing speeds. He hit the ground hard. John couldn’t see from this distance how shaken his bones were, but at the same time, it was Shappe.

He opened the door and stepped out of the tower as John and Carl passed. Carl wasn’t slowing down for him. But of all the people to be stuck trying to catch up to a moving bus... well, it was Shappe.

John watched him through the walls. He wasn’t running so much as skating on the air that the boots shot out under him. He would shoot forward for an instant, skate alongside the bus, immediately fall behind because he was still going at bicycle speeds and not escaped prison bus speeds, and then after he went back a certain distance, he would shoot forward again.

“Hey!” he yelled between jumps. “Hey!” “Let!” “Me!” “In!”

“Can you open the door, Burbank?”

Carl shifted a lever by the steering wheel back and forth. “Nope. Doors won’t open while we’re moving.”

“Alright,” John said. “Alright.”

As Shappe fell behind again, John pulled his gun, aimed at the glass, and fired three shots. Only one bullet came out though. The other two only gave him clicks. John looked down at the pistol. The clip was empty. This was frustrating.

The glass of the door was left with a small hole and a spider-web of cracks, but certainly nothing that any part of Shappe, or John for that matter, could fit through. Frustrating.

John had an idea, one that probably wouldn’t work, but at least the risk was low. Low-ish. As he thought about it, he wondered if Shappe might get sliced in half. The situation was highly unorthodox. Well, he supposed, at worst, it would be an interesting learning experience.

What John did was pull his shirt off over his head and then wrap it around his fist. With his free hand (with more than a little pain from that bullet wound, but the adrenaline was helping out wonderfully with that) he drew a hole in the floor of the bus. He had to make sure the hole was on the bus and not on the air so that it stayed with him and didn’t fly out the back. Then, John took his fist wrapped in shirt and he punched the glass of the door.

It certainly felt like that hurt him more than it hurt the door. The glass barely budged and his knuckles cried out in pain. But, he could see the cracks widening and lengthening. He was clearly doing something. He punched again. And again. The hole in the center got wider and sharper with every blow. And John punched until his entire fist burst through the window and out into the rushing air. Glass dug into his elbow, but he would be fine for now. It was only if he stopped to linger on it would that become something debilitating.

He shook the shirt off of his hand. And then when Shappe jumped forward again, he only stopped just before either breaking or snapping off John’s entire forearm. Frustrating, this was all so frustrating.

Okay.

John held up three fingers, hoping that Shappe would get the idea. He just looked confused as he fell behind again. Then John went to two fingers. He seemed to get the idea then. Then one finger. Shappe tensed.

With what little leverage John had, he drew the largest circle he could. It still wasn’t that large, only managing a little under 2 feet in diameter. As soon as the hole appeared it flew back, straight towards Shappe. Shappe shot forward with a burst of air that John could only see over the rushing wind, his hearing absolutely failed him. And John only barely managed to see Shappe himself jump and twist in the air and flatten out as he traveled through John’s space.

But, he made it.

The next thing John knew there was a loud crash from inside the bus as Shappe slammed into the roof and left a sizable, Shappe-shaped dent, and then fell back to the ground. His legs slipped back through the hole on the floor, but he was safely inside, not really at risk of falling back out.

With the danger safely bypassed and the prison now miles behind them, John had the freedom to cautiously extricate his arm from the dangerous broken glass hole that it was currently lodged in without further injury. Which was fortunate. John was still very fond of his arms. It was, at this point in his progress escaping humanity, a bit surreal to look down at both hands and see crimson red blood coating both of them. The ichor of humanity staining the chalky white hands of something decidedly other.

Ah, well, he would have time to contemplate this later. For now, he pulled Shappe out of his hole in the bus’s floor, and then focused on it. Fingers on both sides of the hole, he drew it in, and drew it closed. And with it, so too did shut every hole in space in and surrounding the prison. All instantly. All without a trace.

John would’ve loved to see the reactions to that little trick, it was one of the first things he had practiced back in Germany. Perhaps, he realized in hindsight, it would have been better to leave one, just to see someone gawk as so much chaos vanished quicker than the mind could process it. It would have been so entertaining. But, only the Avengers have ever been able to change the past. He wasn’t quite on that level just yet.

“Whew,” Shappe said, breathing heavily. “That went well I think.”

“Couldn’t agree more,” John said. “Now comes the hard part.”


	5. Principal Photography

**7:46 pm**

Matt was actually in the office for once. It had been less and less ever since the blip ended. And that meant that when he did check in he tried to put in as much as he could. It had been a 12-hour work day so far and he had at least 2 more hours coming afterwards. He probably owed it to Foggy.

His fingers slid across a braille-imprinted paper, a dry document reporting on delays in court proceedings and changes in jury. The kind of thing every instinct in your body tells you that you shouldn’t care about but you probably need to. He took the time to remember the names and dictate a couple notes to himself so that he could remember to look into them when he had the time and the energy. As one hand finished reading up the document to make sure there weren’t any curveballs thrown at the last minute his other hand was already on the typewriter next to him, typing up a response to the communications with the prosecutor on a different case. A half-automatic response that Matt could type while reading.

His ear twitched. Five blocks away, down on 81st he heard an alarm. An ATM’s alarm. It was hard to get a picture of what was going on down there.

A pair of powerful hydraulics retracted and tore an ATM out of the ground. That was weird. A pair of equally as powerful hydraulics then extended and lifted a person 20 feet off the ground while he carried the ATM. That was weirder.

The guy walked slowly, like balancing on a set of stilts. It wasn’t exactly imposing, but it wasn’t idle either. Each step sent a small quake through the ground, cars would drive up and honk to try and get past and he would step on them and their frames would crumple underneath him.

Matt didn’t think that the police would have trouble with an exceptionally tall man, but with firepower like that someone could definitely get hurt. He was wondering if he could afford to hold off on his reports and replies until tomorrow. Actually he was already in the process of standing up and pulling his suit off, when he heard a thwip and someone new was flying in.

He easily recognized Spider-Man, by the web technology and the mannerisms, though it was hard to be entirely sure from just the sound of things happening in the distance. It was also hard because, Matt had to admit, the kid worked fast. He swung onto the scene, blabbing away while he worked but still, within seconds the stilt man was wrapped tightly in adhesive webbing.

He started falling. Matt jerked for the door, but Spider-Man was on that too, catching him in a net between two buildings. The police were arriving now. The stilt man was apprehended in the cleanest way possible. Nothing for Matt to worry about, he supposed.

He sat back down and tried to remember where he left of with his reply.

Matt heard Foggy’s footsteps coming back from the bathroom. He opened the door and walked back in and saw Matt frozen at his typewriter.

“Something the matter?” he asked.

“No, just – got distracted and lost my place.”

“Oh. Is this the motion to dismiss on the MacMillan case?”

“Nah, I’m gonna finish this and then get to that and then, probably call it a night.”

“Alright. Take care of yourself, man.”

“Yeah, you too. See you tomorrow.”

“You mean it this time?”

“Yes, Foggy, I will see you tomorrow.”

“See you tomorrow then.” Foggy gave him a pat on the shoulder and walked out.

Five blocks away, Matt heard the officers pulling the hydraulics off of the stilt man and ushering him into the back of a cruiser. Good. Nothing to worry about. Jessica was right, this whole thing with Mysterio and The Hand, it was all behind him now and he should really focus on his work.

He took another moment to reread what he last wrote with his fingers and then continued typing.

* * *

**11:58 pm**

Jessica was back on wherearetherealheroes.com. For reasons that were beyond her. She was bored and it was late and there was nothing to do and a gross curiosity pulled her back in.

Newest threads were about New York again. Certainly there were super nutjob attacks in LA or Vegas or wherever.

A guy called Stilt-Man tried to run off with an ATM. Stilt-Man. Jessica looked through the cell phone pictures and mugshots of the guy. He looked like a Stilt-Man. Dumbass extendo legs. Like surely if the cops showed up before Spider-Man they’d just shoot him out of the air, right?

‘all that power and he wastes it on petty theft? he should’ve gone after hawkeye or one of the weaker avengers or something’ What a ringing endorsement.

Immediate response to that, ‘An ATM isn’t petty, that’s like grand larceny on some level.’

Jessica responded to that one, ‘He’s right.’ Anonymously of course.

The rest of the thread kind of just followed that trend. Should’ve fought the Avengers, should’ve fought the Defenders, should’ve gone full radical anarchist and blew up some shit. These people really did not appreciate a guy with stupid powers just trying to make a living.

She clicked out of that thread. Nothing much interesting happening in there.

What else was new? A few threads down was one that was just titled, ‘Tomorrow’s the day boys’.

Oh god was one of these freaks about to go on a shooting spree? She clicked on that one.

No comments. No messages. Looks like the thread was too new. The body of the post was just ‘Who’s ready for a new world order lads’

Jess... didn’t want to just leave that one alone. She put out a reply. ‘What’s happening tomorrow?’

Refresh. Refresh. Refresh. Couple more replies coming in now. Most of them were the same vagueties, a couple statements sounded like... something. ‘Cut off one head and two more will grow back in its place.’ That wasn’t menacing at all. Someone responded to Jessica’s question. ‘>He doesn’t know’ and then a drawing of a really smug chick.

Refresh. Refresh.

Someone sent her a private message.

‘Hey, saw your understandable confusion lmao. You may just be a lowly anon’ thanks buddy ‘but I saw you around some other threads earlier. Just try to keep this on the DL.’ And then a link to somewhere else on the site. She followed that. It was another thread, though one with a little lock next to the title, though she could still comment. ‘Hydra in Switzerland Masterpost [COMPLETE]’.

That wasn’t the combination of words she expected to see.

Jessica’s eyes glazed over, she skimmed over the page but lost interest pretty quickly. Rumors were going around that Hydra had managed to get some kind of foothold in the Swiss government or something. All of this seemed so far above her paygrade it was insane.

The comments were, obnoxious. ‘Hail Hydra’, ‘Cut off one head’ etc. etc. They were just spouting the same copy paste catchphrases.

One guy was like ‘I hate the Tony Starks of the world just as much as anyone but does it bother anyone else to be supporting literal nazis like this?’ and most of the responses were like ‘they’re not nazis dude’ or the more informative ‘You can’t just call everyone you don’t like a nazi.’

Jessica had no idea what any of this meant or what was evening happening tomorrow, but that was her morbid curiosity sated and that whole page closed out of.

* * *

**6:21 am**

Colleen finished her morning calisthenics, moved over to where her coffee was brewing and turned on the tv while she sipped from the still steaming mug.

She turned on the tv, turned to the morning news, and then proceeded to pay it as little attention as possible.

“-until the Avengers’ Spider-Man arrived on the scene to quickly apprehend him, as seen in this footage,” cell phone footage started playing of someone looking up at a guy walking past on gigantic, silver-tubed legs before a small red blur swung in and webbed him up in a second and then left. “The perpetrator, Wilbur Day, is still in questioning. More news on this story as it develops.”

“And where are the Avengers?” the other host picked up. “Well, information is still coming in, but several eyewitnesses report that their jet was seen flying east just after midnight last night. Keep this information in mind when making short term plans-”

She flipped over to a different channel. Two personable morning show hosts were talking across a table at each other.

“-the entire Avengers just packed up and left New York? Like the _entire_ Avengers?”

“The entire whole Avengers.”

“Y’all can’t even leave us Hawkeye or something? You can’t spare us a Hawkeye?”

“Leave Falcon behind or something. How much is he really doing, ya know?”

“I mean, I wouldn’t be saying this normally, but New York’s been crazy these past couple weeks. We had that building fall on Luke Cage and his girlfriend. We got whoever _this_ guy is,” an image appeared behind her of that Wilbur Day guy, “stepping on cars and ripping up ATMs and stuff. And Spider-Man stopped him and all, but ya know where Spider-Man is right now? On a plane to Germany or Russia or something.”

“It just seems like – it just seems like a really volatile time for the Avengers to just leave without leaving behind any protection. I mean, I know New York isn’t the only city in the world, but still, they’ve got their headquarters upstate, we were the ones hit in both the attack of 2012 and the Thanos invasion, it just feels like-”

Colleen turned the tv off. Can’t anyone talk about anything else anymore?

* * *

**11:37 am**

Luke finished his morning jog and stopped at a local coffee place. Good service, good coffee, Luke knew the owner’s mom and she was a nice lady, and he was a nice kid.

He went with a decaf. He had just come back from a run, his heartrate didn’t need to be any higher.

Luke took his coffee and sat by the window. As he drank, he stared out at the crowds on the sidewalk, people walking either which way, mingling, loitering, jaywalking. Luke was well aware, that this habit of his was tied directly to his image. People saw him as the ever vigilant protector of Harlem. Always keeping an eye out for trouble. In actuality he just liked people-watching.

He watched the kid with the skateboard try to grind on the curb and trip and stumble and try to play it off like nobody saw it. In all likelihood, nobody cared, but kids are always self-conscious about these things. He watched the guy in a full suit and tie, briefcase at his side and everything, but seemingly not wearing a shirt underneath. Luke wondered if that was just an accident or if he had some ill intentions for later today. He watched a guy with a thick beard and shaggy coat go about yelling at everyone he could see passing him on the sidewalk, almost all of whom walked by him without sparing a second look. He kept pointing down and motioning to the ground, like he was angry about the pavement itself.

Across the street, on the second floor of a construction site, there was a worker leaning over the railing. He motioned back for a friend to come over. Both of them peered down at Luke, their heads bobbed around like pigeons trying to get a good look at him. Then they waved down, trying to get his attention. He waved back, wanting to be nice. They made a lot of motions trying to communicate, making fun of the guy yelling about the ground and shoving each other and giving Luke a few thumbs up.

Then they both paused. There was a crashing sound from the end of the street, but they were in a better position to see what it was than Luke. Whatever it was, their eyes were glued to it. Whatever it was, it seemed like it was coming this way.

People on the sidewalks stopped, looked back, and then ran off, more than a few of them giving a scream. That was enough to get Luke out of his seat.

And then finally it made its way to him. A slate gray prison bus tore by, Luke caught a single glimpse of the three men in the front, and recognized one of them. It swerved off the road and hit the under-construction building with a fishtail before course correcting back onto the street.

Luke rushed out as one of the workers was knocked over the edge of the railing. Arms out, and just in time, he caught the guy before he hit the ground. Had to remember to slow him down, otherwise hitting his unbreakable hands would probably be worse than just crashing into the concrete.

“Hey,” the guy said. “Are you going to do something about that?”

“You’re welcome.” Never change New York. “Yeah. Yeah I think I’m going to do something about that.”

He ran off, following the prison bus.

* * *

**11:39 am**

Matt was in the middle of typing up a deposition when his ear twitched. Heavy crashing headed in a straight line through Harlem.

“Hey, Foggy, can you turn on the news?”

“Uh, yeah? Sure?” He clicked a remote and the tv set hanging in the corner.

Less than a moment of static and then “-high speed chase through South Harlem. The three escaped convicts are considered armed and highly dangerous, with several enhanced on board, civilians are advised to remain in their homes.”

Foggy sighed. “Well. Go ahead and say it.”

“...I should really go and help with this.”

“Yeah. Yep. Okay.”

“Are you okay with that?”

“What am I gonna say, no? Like O’Grady’s property case is more important than that, whatever that is?”

“Really sorry about this, Fog.”

“Just go handle it.”

Matt was already rushing out the door, “I owe you!”

* * *

**11:40 am**

“Sharon, you’ve got to be kidding me with that form,” Colleen said. “My cat could see through an approach like that. And Jamie, you plod so hard, you’re the loudest person walking in this entire park, how would I _not_ be able to tell you were following me?”

“Sorry, sensei,” Colleen’s morning class bowed and apologized. The whole, ‘try to ambush me around the city’ lesson was maybe a bit antiquated at this point, but it was unique, it was engaging, and it’s what most of her students wanted to do now that she was also the Iron Fist and a superhero and stuff. And a lesson on practicality like this needed a firm hand.

“There’s no apologizing you guys. Now, I will say, your strikes had a lot of oomph behind them, I’m very impressed with the hand-to-hand portion of this exercise, but mobility and movement is also important. How you approach a fight is as much a deciding factor as what you do in it.”

“Yes, sensei.”

“Alright, next what we’re going to do is-”

Something crashed into something behind her. She spun on her heels, hand already on her blade’s hilt. What she saw was a chunk of the corner of a convenience store tore out and about 5 cop cars full siren blaring after whatever had done it.

“Uh, class dismissed, have a good day, stay safe,” Colleen ran off after the sirens.

* * *

**11:41 am**

Jessica was bored out of her skull. Sitting on a fire escape, watching through the window across the street. The guy she’d been hired to tail was talking to his solid 7 of a lawyer and they’d been flirting and making moony eyes at each other for the better part of an hour. Jess wished they’d just start banging on her desk so she could get her pictures and go home already.

They got into position. Pressed right up next to each other. She started tugging his tie loose. Jessica got her camera ready.

A prison bus and like 6 or 7 cop cars shot past underneath. She jumped, they jumped, everyone was so thoroughly spooked by whatever the fuck had just happened that they all forgot all about that moment. The guy was already running out the door.

What the fuck was that about?

She hopped the railing and fell to the ground. Footing was kind of weird, but she was drunk. And she walked it off anyways.

She followed the sounds of sirens, it was a skill she had unfortunately become pretty good at. There was a weird... dip in the crowds as she made her way through the streets. She’d heard once that when a tsunami is coming, the tide suddenly goes way far away and then all the sudden a giant wave appears. It was like that. A lot of people running away and then, all of the sudden, the streets were empty. Not a soul except herself. And then as she turned a corner, there was the flood. A massive crowd surrounding a police barricade. She tried to stand on her toes to see over it, but everyone in the back was doing that, so she didn’t get much.

Jessica’s plan then was to back up, take stock of the situation, and then probably go home. She wasn’t exactly an ambulance chaser, the incident with Kara and Berkhart had her on edge, but if this wasn’t related to any of that, then she didn’t need to bother.

Or at least she thought she didn’t. As she was backing away she glanced up and spotted Colleen jumping across rooftops, clambering up fire escapes, generally heading for right across the barricade and into no man’s land.

Something gross bubbled up in the pit of Jessica’s stomach. This wasn’t weird, this wasn’t weird at all. Colleen was always running into big disaster areas. But Jessica couldn’t shake the feeling.

So instead of just leaving like a sensible person she instead pushed through the crowd to make it to the front. More than a few people got knocked to the ground when they wouldn’t get out of her way. She was about to lift up the barricade and walk past, but the sane part left in Jessica’s brain told her that getting shot sucked and there were cops holding the line here.

“Hey,” she yelled out the nearest boy in blue. “I need to get through here.”

“Sorry ma’am, we can’t let anyone through right now it’s dangerous.”

“Can you at least tell me what’s going on.”

He looked over to his partner before answering. “A couple supers escaped from a prison upstate. We’ve got the situation under control, but we need your cooperation right now.”

Supers escaping from prison. And Jessica supposed her luck wasn’t good enough for these to be any old random supers who decided to come tear up Manhattan after escaping prison upstate.

“I need to get through,” she said again. “I live down here, I need to get back home.”

“Ma’am, please, just give us some time to resolve the situation.”

His partner looked over, probably at the commotion Jessica was making. “Hey, isn’t she one of those superhero types?” she said.

The first cop looked back at her. Then at Jess. “Is she?”

“She was the one who uh...” she snapped her fingers to try and remember. “She took down like... some bad guys. Or something. She was on tv once, I recognize the jacket and the attitude.”

Now that’s the kind of respect for citizen lives that they drill into you in the academy.

The cop gave a deep huff and looked Jessica up and down. “Well, I don’t know how much you can do to help, but if you really want to lend a hand...”

When did Jessica ever mention helping. “Yeah, sure. Whatever. Just don’t shoot me.”

She vaulted over the barricade, ignored the renewed yelling from behind her, and walked down the deserted street.

The prison bus sat on its side in the middle of the street. A little dinged, big dent in the roof, but not too damaged. Not yet at least. Jessica jumped up onto its side. Looked down through the windows. Dead empty. The door had been torn off completely.

She hopped off the other side and continued down the street.

Something sat at the far end of her vision. At first she thought it was a shadow, but it wasn’t, like, attached to anything. It wasn’t on the ground or on... anything. Just sat in the middle of the air. She thought it might’ve been a floater in her eye but it didn’t move with her gaze. It was something actually just stuck in the middle of the air.

She approached. Cautiously. Ready for... whatever the fuck this thing was.

In the air right in front of a now abandoned 7-11 was a big black spot. She looked around at it from every angle. It was 2-dimensional. Trying to see it from the side, it was flatter than paper. Completely invisible when looked at from the right angle.

She went back from the front and reached out to touch the thing. Then she pulled back and put out her other arm. If she was about to lose something then she’d rather it be the left. There were a couple of sensations she was expecting, smooth stone, fur, searing pain, a rapid numbness. Instead she felt nothing, and her hand just kind of, slipped through the thing. Up the elbow was as far as she wanted to go, she reached around and grasped around on the inside of the spot, and didn’t find anything, so she pulled her arm back out. Creepy.

There was another one just ahead, across the street. A third farther down.

What did Luke say? Matt fought some guy who made portals?

Shit fuck god fucking dammit.

“Colleen,” Jess called out. “Yo Wing. Where you at.”

No response. Jessica went in deeper. Coming to an intersection, she looked down the side street and saw the trail of black spots grow thicker. While there were only a couple where she was now, down this street there were about a dozen.

She turned and walked down it. Once the barricade she’d come through was out of sight, there wasn’t another human person that she could see in any direction. For a regular person it’d be unnerving, for a New Yorker it was a completely alien feeling.

Jessica’s eyes were constantly moving. It was an ordeal - and ultimately impossible - to keep her eyes on every single spot at every single moment. But she didn’t trust any of this. As soon as her back was turned, she knew something would happen.

The spots clustered thicker at the mouth of an alleyway. She peered down. Straight shot to another street on the other side. And the whole thing was filled to the brim with these spots, even more on the other side.

This was a trap, this was definitely a trap. Jessica thought about how much this was blatantly a trap as she took a running start and leaped over the chain link fence dividing the two halves of the alley and came stutter-stepping to a stop on the other side.

Out here she was surrounded on all sides by black spots, taking up more of her vision than the buildings around her. She also saw another person, though not the one she expected.

“Luke?”

Luke Cage turned to look at her, equally confused. “Jessica? What are you doing here?”

She wanted to respond with ‘I should be asking you that’ but, no, it definitely made more sense for Luke to be at the center of a weird supervillain attack in Harlem than her. “I don’t really know myself.”

“Still thinking this is all over and behind us?”

“Fuck off.”

Luke shrugged that off and nodded. “Noted.”

Jessica’s eyes couldn’t stop wandering. Every one of these spots put her teeth on edge.

“I saw Colleen come through here earlier, have you seen-”

Poof clang. Huh?

It took Jessica a second to figure out what had just happened. There had been a sound like a burst of air and then metal on metal from, right next to her, where Luke was. There was another sound, like a burst of air, and as she looked over it was just Luke.

No, past Luke, but way past him, there were three men who had not been standing there moments before. By the powers of deduction, probably the three supers that had attacked Matt, Luke, and Colleen. There was an albino guy, covered in black spots, like the ones that hung in the air around them. No guesses for figuring out what he did. There was a burly one with a buzzcut, taller than the other two, with one hand pointing towards her, but instead of a hand there was the shape of a pistol in fleshy pink. That would be gunhands man, it was a lot less funny now that she was looking down the barrel. And then, situating himself back into place, was a crackhead looking guy, with greasy, slimy black hair pulled into a ponytail, poking out from underneath a silver bicycle helmet and black ski goggles. And with a pair of giant mechanical boots on his feet. By process of elimination, this was the fast guy.

Gunhands steadied his gun hand and took his shot. Jessica flinched and Luke moved to step in front of her, but a red blur flew down from the nearby rooftops and knocked his hand down. The bullet hit pavement. The blur flew back up.

Daredevil caught the baton as it returned to him. He then flipped down to the much shorter building next to him, bounced off a hot dog cart’s umbrella, and landed on the ground next to Jessica.

“Hmm, weird,” said the crackhead. He leaned forward.

Colleen ran forward, from where Jessica wasn’t sure, but she was here now. And in a burst of air there was another clash of metal. Jessica hadn’t even seen him move but the crackhead was now several meters closer with a pair of knives raised and crossed and blocking Colleen’s unsheathed sword. Burst of air and he backed off.

Colleen took a few steps back, lined up with the three of them.

“Ah, good, we’re all here now.” Jessica wasn’t sure who was talking. It was probably the albino, but... “Defenders of New York, I believe this is what you would call, round 2.”

“What do you think you’re going to do?” Luke shot back. “We kicked your asses 1v1 and now you’re outnumbered.”

“Butcher you like pigs, I hope,” said the crackhead.

“Give up,” Daredevil said. “Put your weapons down and this won’t be a problem.”

“Well, now that you’ve said it so politely.” The albino shook his head. “I suppose it’s back to prison for us, gentlemen.”

Gunhands lifted his gun hand again. “My suggestion to you is make peace with whatever god you think is real.”

“Jesus, edgy much,” Colleen said. “Can we get to the part where we beat you into the ground already? Luke was right, you don’t stand a chance.”

“Beautiful,” the albino said. “Perfect pre-fight banter, I’d expect nothing less from heroes of such caliber.”

“Fuck the small talk,” the crackhead said. “Let’s just start the slaughter already.”

“Then come at us.” Luke got his fists up.

Jessica sighed and got her fists up as well. Goddamn superhero bullshit.

Gunhands flipped his arm around and pointed a sub-machine gun at them and opened fire. Jessica took a moment to cover her head, which now that she was down here, she realized wouldn’t actually accomplish anything. But whatever. Luke stepped between them and got wide, the open air was filled with the sound of ricochets.

There was a burst of air and the crackhead was gone. The albino stepped back into one of his big spots and disappeared as well.

“Watch your six,” Daredevil said as he ran past. One thrown baton and he knocked away gunhand’s aim and a moment later he crashed into him with a flying kick.

It took a moment for it to even pierce Jessica’s skull what ‘her six’ even was, but in her confusion she did turn around and see the crackhead tensing while pointed straight at her. Two stiff arms out, a burst of air later, and she was in the unfortunate position of grasping at his gross, sweaty prison jumpsuit.

“Stop doing that,” she said. She lifted him overhead, continued into the motion, and hurled him across the street. He hit hard, fell on his neck. Didn’t seem bothered by it though. He was already scrambling back up to his feet.

A little farther down Luke and Daredevil were brawling with gunhands. He brought up a pistol, Matt twisted out of the way just as it fired. And Luke came up from behind, grabbed his hand and yanked it back.

And while she was looking away something hit Jessica over the back of the head.

“What the – fuck.” She looked back. The albino was waving back at her as he popped back into a spot.

Jess massaged the back of her head and swore some more cause it made her feel better.

“Jess look out!” Colleen yelled.

Jessica whirled around to see the crackhead, already on his feet and knives brandished. Colleen lunged in front of her and there was a burst of air. In the next instant, his knife clashed against her sword, a few hot sparks flying off from the collision, and then Colleen was shunted back. She stabbed the tip of her blade down into the pavement to try and slow down. More sparks, the grinding sound hurt Jessica’s ears.

“Thanks,” Jessica said.

“No problem.” Colleen ran back in. One slash of her sword had the crackhead backing up again. One burst of air and he shot backwards and slammed into the wall behind him. Then a second one and he was gone.

Something rushed past Jessica’s ear and nicked into her shoulder. She didn’t realize she was bleeding until she touched the wound.

A blur of orange and white and silver exploded out of one of those big spots hanging in the air, and by the time Jessica had registered seeing it she’d already been cut in her side.

“God-”

Jessica stumbled back. Not really tactically or with a purpose, her brain just wanted to get out of the situation and her legs seemed to agree.

It didn’t help much. Two bursts of air and Jess was hit with a one-two divided by some measurement of time too small to bother knowing the name of. They felt like punches. Strong punches. Like a 6 out of 10. And Jess had a high bar for a 10.

At this point her eyes were going crazy, trying to latch onto any ounce of movement they could find and ultimately doing way more harm than good when they moved on too fast for her to actually see what she was looking at.

There was a burst of air and a blur of motion from one of the floating spots and despite the fact that Jessica was looking right at it when it happened, she didn’t have enough time to do anything but squeeze her eyes shut.

Ping.

Well that didn’t sound her intestines spilling out of her stomach. She peeked one eye open enough to see Daredevil’s red baton fly off behind her and the crackhead collapse backwards onto the sidewalk. She turned back. Matt did a dumb flip off the nearest banister and landed next to her. Without looking, though Jess supposed, why would he need to, he threw the baton again to his left, disrupting gunhand’s aim and giving Luke some room to back up and rejoin the group.

Gunhands let his hands stay down and caught his breath, down on the other end of the street. With a burst of air and a blur of movement, the crackhead was standing next to him. The albino then stepped out of a spot to join them.

“You guys aren’t doing too well,” Colleen said.

“Yes, I suppose we aren’t,” the albino said back. “I suppose then, it is time to stop, ah, fooling around. It’s been fun to watch but, honestly, trying to keep track of all of you at once, it’s giving me a headache.”

And with that, he stepped back into a spot. Jessica never knew what the bad guys meant by this whole, ‘no more fooling around’ business. Like no one fights bad for a bit just for shits and giggles.

The crackhead shot forward again, Jessica flinched back but nothing hit her except for a slipstream. She looked up. He was gone. That was confusing.

“Shit!” Colleen yelled out. Jessica turned towards her.

Colleen was splayed out, face down on the ground. Gunhands, now with his normal hands, was holding her by the ankle. He gave a yank. She flew back and disappeared into one of the black spots.

“Colleen!” Luke charged him. Gunhands jumped back into the spot himself. Luke barreled in after him.

And then there were two. Jessica turned to Matt. “Can we not do the whole splitting up thing. I really don’t want to do that.”

Matt nodded. “I’m with you.”

And as soon as he said that, his head jerked back around. One baton was already up, and just in time as he was, all of the sudden, clashing weapons with the crackhead.

“Shit.” Jessica took a few cautious steps back.

Then someone grabbed her by the neck of her jacket and pulled her back.

It wasn’t gunhands, cause the tug wasn’t that strong. Like a 2 out of 10. But it was enough. Enough to make her take a few, stumbling steps back. And she felt something odd wash over her and then she was staring into one of those big floating black spots.

“Matt. Matt!” Jessica jumped back through.

No Matt. No crackhead. No anyone. She was still alone, and not where she’d just been either. This was a different stretch of street, with different stores and different signs and different turns.

So that’s what he meant.

* * *

**12:32 pm**

Colleen rolled to a stop. Sharp gravel jabbed into her arms and her side. She pushed herself to her feet, slow and steady and still catching her breath from what just happened.

Now, now that she was thinking about it, she didn’t remember there being any gravel pits on the street she had just been in. So Colleen got up, took a look around, and saw she was about 20 feet higher than she had been just moments ago. On top of a roof she didn’t recognize. Absolutely alone but surrounded by a dozen of those creepy floating spots.

Colleen drew her sword and held it out front. Defensive stance. Ready to swat away any incoming attack. A slash from this position wouldn’t deal a whole of damage, but it would have to be enough.

It was very hard to watch your own back. Colleen was turning on her heels every half second, the gravel crunched underneath her sneakers, she’d turn, study one of the spots, not see any movements, turn to the next one. Over and over and over and nothing was happening and it was driving Colleen up the wall.

It was only just as she was beginning to think that she wasn’t under attack anymore that anything happened. Burbank, the man with the prosthetics that had attacked her at the outdoor market before, stepped out of one of the black holes. His left hand was a normal hand, his right hand was a pistol pointed directly at Colleen’s head.

Colleen tensed. Her eyes were so focused she could feel them bulging out of her head. Staring directly at the muzzle of the gun. The second it flashed, she needed to be ready to react. One wrong move and he would use that opening.

She waited. And waited. And waited.

Colleen had no idea what he was waiting for. For her to make the first move? Maybe he was thinking the same thing she was. She risked a glance up, away from the barrel of the gun, and towards his face. Burbank gave her a smirk.

There was a rush of air and a blur of movement and a stinging pain in her cheek. She looked to where the movement went, and just saw the black void of a hole in space. Just as quick, she looked back to Burbank. Gun still pointed at her. Both hands kept a grip on her sword. She didn’t need to check. She knew she’d been cut.

That same blur of movement, Joss Shappe, flew out from the hole just behind Burbank’s shoulder, and by the time Colleen had even registered seeing it, an impact rocked her chin and knocked her back a few steps. There was a burst of air, another impact slammed her over the back of her head, and Shappe was immediately gone again.

Colleen knew, from every source of training she’d ever gone through, that panic was the killer in a fight to the death like this. As soon as she started panicking, she’d make costly mistakes, leave herself wide open, and get destroyed by a calmer opponent. And that knowledge was the only thing keeping her from flying off. She was faced, at such a disadvantage, by one opponent with the range on her, another with a wide speed lead.

She knew what she needed now. Her one advantage. The iron fist. If she pushed all that energy into the ground, she could send all the gravel flying into the air, it would trip up Shappe’s next attempt to run in and provide her enough cover to get clear of Burbank’s aim. Shifting one hand to just below her sword so she could ball it in a fist, she took a deep breath, channeled her chi down to her hand, then shot straight down and launched a punch into the roof of the building.

Her knuckles hurt.

Her eyes tore from Burbank in disbelief. She tried channeling her chi again. No glow in her fist, no emanation of power, she just looked down at her normal, regular hand.

“Wha-”

What was wrong? A million ideas rang through her head. Had someone done something? Was there poison in that cut? Did she do something wrong? Did she lose her muscle memory in channeling or physical form?

One answer resonated back to her. The image of blood slowly leaking from under that cheap Mysterio costume.

While Colleen was thinking about this, she neglected the fact that she was surrounded by two men who wanted her dead. There was a blur of movement that, Colleen wasn’t even in the right headspace to acknowledge, and suddenly there was a kitchen knife sticking out of her stomach.

Her vision pulsed. The pain hadn’t hit quite yet, but even before she felt anything her body had given up on her. Her knees buckled and her back gave out and she just collapsed back onto the roof. Heavy breathing. Heavy breathing. Oh, there the pain hit. Her hands gave up on keeping her sword close and instead went to clutch at the wound, for all the good it would do.

At the far end of her tunneling vision, she saw Burbank looming over her. Pistol pointed directly between her eyes. Her thought processes were starting to leave her now, or at least she hoped they were, as her first cognizant thought after realizing this fact was the idea that maybe she deserved it.

Burbank just stared down into her eyes for another second. Then his aim went lower and a white hot bullet tore through the far side of her chest instead. She screamed out in pain, since there wasn’t much else for her to do. Then Burbank dug his boot underneath her shoulder and kicked her over, off the roof.

She fell. Turned in midair. Not from any conscious decision, just through momentum and wind resistance. As she turned, she saw that she was falling down into one of those black spots in the air. She kinda thought that, like, she’d enter some otherworldly plane, drift through a space without gravity or something, that something would slow her down and catch her.

Instead she passed right through, hit the ground, and broke her arm.

* * *

**12:32 pm**

Luke Cage came barreling out of the portal-thing aggressive, arms swinging. He didn’t know what was gonna be on the other side of this so he went with the best defense being a good offense kind of approach. He didn’t want to give Burbank any time to try anything, especially since Colleen was in danger.

But as soon as he passed through the darkness of that hole in the air, he didn’t see Burbank or Colleen. Or anyone really.

It took a second for him to realize where he was. The Willis Avenue Bridge. Middle of the road too, but no oncoming traffic. At least he was still in Harlem, but he was blocks away from where the fight first broke out. And he had no idea where Colleen was now.

On the Bronx end, there was a police barricade in front of a line of cars and an angry mob of people. That was good, at least. He heard a couple shouts of his name. Probably people trying to make their way back home.

He should probably go over there and talk this over with the police. Let them know what was happening. Or at least, he was going to. There was a spray of gunfire, a familiar pinging sensation in his back. He turned and saw Burbank stepping out of one of the portals, with his left hand in its machine gun configuration.

Luke tried to get wide, soak up as many bullets as he could, while yelling down at the barricade. “Go! Get out of here! Get down!”

There were a few screams, and a ripple of motion, but it didn’t look like many people were leaving. People always had to watch.

Alright, the plan was this. Bridge the gap but don’t make any moves yet. Luke didn’t want crossfire to hit any of the pedestrians behind him. As soon as he saw his opening, he’d get in Burbank’s range, keep him from aiming in this general direction at all, and take him down. Luke got his fists up and started sidling forward. Burbank steadied his gunhand on his normal hand. Crumpled bullets gathered around Luke’s feet, discarded shells fell at Burbank’s.

Click click. Hiss. The machine gun swung back into his arm.

Luke made his move. He swat away the machine gun with a backhand then got even closer and hit Burbank with an elbow to the chin. Grabbed him by the shoulders to keep him from getting too far away. Knee to the gut, knee to the gut, then got one hand on his chest and shoved him back. That should’ve been enough to lay him out. His whole body hitting the iron bars on the side of the bridge would knock any normal guy out cold.

Burbank though, stuck both hands out behind him and caught himself. His body never touched the side of the bridge. But as he pulled himself from it, his fingers left behind deep grooves in the metal.

Burbank spun his right arm, drawing his pistol and aiming. Not at Luke, but at the crowd down the street. Luke ran in and yanked his arm straight up. Three shots went into the metal overhead. And while Luke was doing that, Burbank laid a hook into his face.

It actually hurt.

Burbank swung two gut punches into Luke’s abs. Each one knocked Luke back a step, but keeping in close was still his priority. Luke swung wide, bring his hand around to clap Burbank on the ear. But Burbank snuck his arm in and stopped the swing cold.

And then something rammed into him from the side at an absurd speed.

Luke’s attention went off Burbank. Probably a mistake but at this point he was just confused. Staggering back was, in his pads and helmet and big silver boots, Joss Shappe, the speed freak or whatever he called himself.

While his attention was off Burbank, he hit Luke’s cheek with a cross. Then Shappe shot forward with a burst of air and slammed his head into Luke’s chest. Back and forth, they pushed Luke, until his back was up against the metal bars on the opposite side.

Burbank went for a straight to Luke’s chest at the exact same time that Shappe charged into him. He felt the metal behind him bend. They hit him again and it buckled outward. One last hit, and it tore, and Luke fell back, off the Willis Avenue Bridge.

He didn’t hit water. If only. Instead he slammed into the concrete island that kept up the bridge’s central support. And even down here, he was surrounded by those goddamn black spots.

Luke slowly pushed himself to his feet. The concrete under him now had a spider web of cracks, marking his landing point. Luke was sore all over. But he wasn’t out of the fight yet. He didn’t have unbreakable skin for nothing.

“Ah, Mr. Cage, right on cue. I appreciate punctuality in these things.”

“Huh?” Luke turned and caught a glimpse of John Ohnn, the super who made all these spots in the first place.

He caught a glimpse as Ohnn jumped up, wrapped his arms around Luke’s throat, and tugged him backwards. One misstep, one slip from being tired and caught unaware, and the two of them collapsed back into Harlem River.

Luke struggled and squirmed in Ohnn’s grasp. Ohnn also struggled and squirmed. It was taking all of it out of him to keep that vice on Luke’s neck and pull him below the surface.

Luke had no idea what Ohnn’s plan here was. He was going to run out of air before Luke did, thrashing like he was. But it wasn’t like Luke wanted either of them to drown. He’d like to just elbow this guy in the ribs and get them both out of here. But being in the water was slowing down his swings, and whenever he connected with something, his elbow or his shoulder or his boot or whatever just kind of, sunk in.

Luke paused. He really wanted to catch his breath, but for obvious reasons that wasn’t really feasible at the moment. But as he paused, he noticed.

Ohnn’s chest still had a rhythmic rise and fall. It was faster than normal, but Luke could feel it underneath him. Somehow, Ohnn was still breathing. And for all his great power, Luke couldn’t do that.

Panic set in. Luke started to properly thrash and that was enough to shake Ohnn off of him. He swam for the surface, but he was a heavy guy, in big, thick boots and a jacket. And he couldn’t tell how far away the surface even was. His vision went dark. His lungs were on fire. He couldn’t take anymore.

His mouth opened and he sucked in cold water.

* * *

**12:32 pm**

Matt Murdock saw Harlem through a kaleidoscope.

He recalled having a similar thought back when he fought Ohnn in his apartment. That it was like seeing his apartment through a kaleidoscope. This was entirely different. With a few of these distortions placed around the perimeter of his apartment, getting a map of the whole thing was hard cause the barriers became jagged and copied over each other and undefined. But with so many of the centralized distortions spread out across blocks, not surrounding a target but just floating in space, what Matt saw when he tried to map out everything was... disorienting to say the least.

There was still a bit of that jaggedness. Walls taking unnatural angles and jittering out of and then back into place. But Matt could also feel his way through those distortions, and what was on the other side of them. What Matt could see was essentially, dozens of Harlems overlaid on top of each other at different angles. With dozens of Matts and dozens of Lukes and dozens of Johns and no way to tell which was the ‘real’ versions. And that was a bad situation to be in, because he really wanted to know how to regroup and regain the numbers advantage.

Matt was suddenly surrounded. Hundreds of identical figures in a tight ring, each one overlapping and melding with the one next to it. The man with the mechanical boots. Easy to guard against if you knew which direction he was coming from. But that had gotten a lot harder.

Matt had heard a fun physics fact once, back in high school. The reason that side mirrors in cars say that objects may be closer than they appear is because as light rebounds off of reflected surfaces and into the human eye, the eye judges distance by both the distance from the object to the mirror and the distance from the mirror to the eye. It was a concept that Matt hadn’t had much use for in the meantime, but it somehow stuck in his brain for all these years and refused to make way for more important information.

That was the closest comparison he had to how he could pick out the real man from the reflections. Most of these images of the man, they appeared right next to Matt, but they still ‘looked’ like they were far away. Fuzzy, unfocused, and faint. Some more than others. Picking the real one out of the lineup came down to finding two or three or four that were closest and going back and forth or, more often, going with his gut. Matt had his guess. No time left for betting. He just prepared his guard.

There was a burst of air from blocks away, in the moment it was hard to tell which direction it had come from. And in the next instant the man was on him.

Matt secured his baton with both hands, and even then the impact was harsh. He was pushed back, and only barely kept his footing firm. As soon as the opportunity showed itself, he pushed back. The man was surprised. Wide open. Matt slammed the baton into his face, then followed through with a right hook. Took a spinning jump and slammed his face with two kicks, both feet, one after the other. He hit the ground low, forced to straighten back up, then grabbed him by his ratty shirt and shoved him forward, back through the distortion. And then it shifted and he was gone.

Matt ran to the nearest alley. Or at least, close enough. It took some feeling about. He kicked off of a dumpster and onto a fire escape. Started clambering up floor after floor. What he wanted right now was the high ground. To be above all the distortion so he could hear everything just a little better.

The higher he got, the more the noise flattened. The mirages, the ghosts of people fading in and out from his view, turned to static. Much easier to distinguish. But then, harder to keep track of what was coming in on him.

There was a fuzzy, staticy, flat image of the man with the prosthetics approaching. Multiple actually, in the exact same ring pattern as the man with the boots. When, in a split second, he suddenly became a lot more solid. A lot more real. He flipped his left arm and replaced it with a sub-machine gun, and pointed up at Matt.

There was no click of a trigger being pulled. That threw Matt off. He was focused on so many other things that he neglected to notice that. By the time Matt heard the bullet click into the chamber and the hammer strike down, it had already fired. And it was quickly followed by more.

One quick burst, partway through Matt had been able to duck behind the railing, but there was really no cover up here. Most of the bullet ricocheted off of the metal grating that was the floor, one grazed the side of Matt’s arm. It would certainly left a bruise, but his body armor kept it from tearing into his flesh.

Then a second burst. He was trying to push Matt out of cover. And it was working. Matt couldn’t afford to sit up here and be a still target.

There was a third burst, and Matt needed to act. As soon as it ended, he threw his baton, bounced it off the wall opposite of him to fly back and hit the man in the chest. His aim was thrown off for the fourth burst. Flew into the street next to him instead. Matt pushed off the railing of the fire escape onto the wall opposite. His boots caught onto the brick. Just a bit. Just enough to push off again. With as much momentum as he could preserve, Matt jumped off the wall and caught the roof. He had only barely pulled his legs over when the man on the street below recovered enough to fire again. Now Matt had the entire building to cover him.

The man on the ground grumbled and stepped back through a distortion. And he quickly disappeared as well.

Matt had a moment to catch his breath. But he didn’t want to wait here long.

He took another scan of the city. He was still plagued by fuzzy, confusing overlays, but underneath that was a much clearer image of where everything was. The farther away he got, the harder it was to separate what was really there and what was a reflection from somewhere else.

The only person clearly in range was Luke, a few blocks away on the bridge over Harlem River. That man with the prosthetics appeared through a distortion near him.

Matt took off in that direction. He stuck to the rooftops to keep a hold on that strong visual. Normally he was much faster than this. But the shaky radar made him cautious. He didn’t want to fall again.

From up high he could see what was happening a little more clearly, the scene only got clearer and clearer the closer he got to it. He saw Luke fight with the man with the prosthetics, then the man with the boots showed up and the fight turned one sided. Luke was cornered. Matt picked up his pace a little further. He saw Luke get pushed off. Concerning, but Luke was a tough guy. He didn’t hear anything serious. At least not from this distance.

And then Luke got pulled into the water. Matt wasn’t sure what happened after that. Except that John came up a minute later, and Luke didn’t.

Matt poured on the speed. There was no longer any time to lose. He was only a block away from the river at this point but it still felt so far away. John clambered back onto the island under the bridge and disappeared into a distortion.

Matt placed one boot on the lip of the last building on the block and pushed off. Then pushed off of a lightpole to make it across the street and the grass to the river. And he dove in the water.

If things were clear up on the rooftops and hazy on the ground, they were worse than murky under the water. Matt’s senses went haywire. Smell and taste were out completely, and sound travelled faster down here. It felt like Luke was right beneath him, but he reached out and felt nothing. And surely the river wasn’t 2 feet deep.

So Matt pointed himself and he just kept swimming. And swimming. And as he swam he swung his hands out in front of him feeling around for wherever Luke could be, despite the fact that he never seemed to be more than a few inches in front of him, no matter how deep he got.

Matt’s lungs were beginning to buck. He had no idea how much farther he had to go and he had no idea when he would need to turn back or how far it was back to the surface. He felt sandwiched between the surface and Luke without being able to move any closer to either.

He felt something. The riverbed. A bit more feeling around, and he latched one hand on Luke’s leg. He pushed that last bit forward and got his arms under Luke’s and hoisted him up.

Then he pushed off. Straight up. His lungs were beginning to burn now. He should’ve been moving slower, he knew he probably was, but there was no way to tell. The surface felt like it was inches away from his fingertips. And the bed felt like it was right below his boots. The only thing he could do was paddle and kick up, and pray.

Matt had blacked out before. He knew what it felt like. But it was hard to visualize when he couldn’t literally “black out”. He could feel his consciousness slip away as his body screamed to breath, but there wasn’t that blackness creeping into his vision, telling him when he was getting close. The only thing that would tell Matt when he ran out was if he ran out, and then he’d be joining Luke.

A hand broke the surface. And Matt had suddenly hit the finish line without realizing. His head broke first and began gulping down deep breaths of air. He still felt light in the head but he was alive and he was still up and he wasn’t done working yet. He paddled to the shore. Away from Harlem, towards the Bronx. Shoved Luke onto land and then climbed up himself. He knelt next to Luke’s still unconscious body. His lungs were full of water. Heart was still going but it was slowing down every second. Matt started pushing down on his chest, rhythmic, practiced, precisely where and how strong he was supposed to. But something wasn’t right. Luke’s chest didn’t yield an inch. It was like pushing down on a brick wall.

There was a heavy thud a few feet off. He turned to listen to it. That was Colleen, and that was a broken Humerus.

“Colleen!” he yelled out.

She groaned and lifted her head. “Ma- Daredevil?”

“Are you alright?”

“Y-” She winced. Matt could smell multiple open wounds all across her body. “I’ve been better.”

“Can you get up?”

Painfully, she sidled up onto her knees. “Maybe?”

“Luke’s – he needs help. He needs CPR but I- he’s not- I need an iron fist.”

Colleen’s heartbeat spiked all the sudden. Her breathing got even more shallow.

“Colleen?”

“I- I – I can’t-”

“What?”

“I can’t- I can’t! I can’t. Not- I can’t.”

“You can’t what, why can’t you?”

“I can’t do the iron fist right now Matt! I tried, I can’t!”

“Shit,” Matt muttered. “Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit. Okay. Come over here anyways.”

Colleen pushed herself up to her feet and stumbled over. “I’m sorry Matt.”

“I need you to give him mouth to mouth. I’m going to try the chest compressions again.”

“Can you even get through his skin?”

“I can try.”

Colleen looked at him. Looked down at Luke. Matt could tell she’d lost a bit of blood, probably wasn’t feeling great in the head.

“Quickly.”

“R- Right.” She ducked back down onto her knees, steadied herself with her good hand, and put her mouth to Luke’s. Deep breaths out pushed air back into Luke’s lungs.

Matt brought his fists up. Braced himself for half a second, and then began punching. Full force, as hard as he could, down into Luke’s chest.

Left. Right. Left. Right. The rhythm was the same but now he was striking like he was trying to knock someone’s head off their shoulders.

Left. Right. Left. Right. He felt his knuckles crack and bleed under his gloves.

Left. Right. Left. Right. Luke’s chest barely gave, but the impact was doing something. Matt began to shout with every swing. Any ounce of effort he had he gave to Luke, trying to jumpstart his heart while Colleen pushed his lungs to circulate.

Luke sat up. Knocked Colleen’s head away while doing it. Immediately he was coughing and retching up water into his lap. Then he just started retching. And when he couldn’t retch anymore he began to dry heave. No words, but they weren’t needed right now. Matt leaned back. He could take one moment to catch his breath. Colleen did the same, but she more fell back.

“What the hell happened in there?” That was the voice of Misty Knight. She was approaching.

Matt jumped to his feet. Took a few steps back. Ready to book it if he needed to.

“We got separated,” he said. “They took advantage of the homefield.”

“I can-” Luke fell back into a coughing fit. “We can – go back in.”

“Like hell you can,” Misty said. “The both of you need to see an EMT. And I don’t know what you’re hiding under that suit, but let’s be better safe than sorry.”

“I’m fine,” Matt said. “You take care of these two, I’m going back in.”

“Absolutely not.” She looked down at Luke. “Look, I let you and your friends in cause I trust you, and you’re good at handling crazy shit like this. But if it comes down to civilians, which you all _are_, getting severely injured, I’m sending the cops in to do their jobs.”

“Misty.” Despite his coughing, Luke managed to stand up. “I know you’re worried – but really – if you give me a moment – to catch my breath – I can still bring this back.”

He pushed to walk past her. Misty pushed back with her metal arm. He buckled easily. “Luke. Stand down.”

Luke had no response. Just hacking.

“And as for you-”

Misty turned to where Matt had been moments ago. He was already back crossing the bridge over to Harlem. Keeping out of sight, but still in earshot. His own earshot. Not hers.

“Shit,” Misty said.

“Hey,” Colleen mumbled from the ground. “If that EMT offer is still on the table, I’d be happy to accept it.”

“...Shit.” Misty kept a grasp on Luke with her metal arm, and helped Colleen to her feet with her other one. “Come on, both of you.”

Luke wheezed and coughed and looked between the two of them? “Wait – where’s Jess?”

* * *

**12:50 pm**

Jessica Jones was absolutely lost. She wasn’t super familiar with Harlem to begin with, but being dumped in some random location? No, absolutely not, she was not finding Luke or Matt or Colleen, the best she could do is find her way home.

She kinda wanted to do just that.

But, her life never went so simply. Before she could make it back to a police barricade or something, the albino popped out of one of the big floating black spots in front of her.

“Oh good,” she said. “Don’t even have to work for this one.”

“Ms. Jones,” he said. “I’ve been looking all over for you. You really ought to learn to sit still.”

Jessica responded by grabbing him by the shirt and lifting him off the ground. Her fist squinched into the fabric.

“...Why are you wet.”

“Oh, it’s not important.”

“...Whatever. Look. I don’t know what you think you’re doing, I don’t know what your whole fucking plan was, but now’s the time to give it up.”

“Because we’re doing so poorly, I’m sure.”

“Your boss is dead... I killed him myself. You’re not going to get anything from this, it’s over. Give up and go home. Or go to jail. I don’t really care which.”

“Ooh. You are a poor, poor liar Ms. Jones.”

She snarled at him. “Read my lips asshole. He. Is. Dead.”

“Oh, I believe you on that point. Or, rather, I believe, that you believe you.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What are you getting at.”

“Ah. My apologies. It was nothing. Forget I said anything.”

Jessica responded by throwing him across the street into the nearest dumpster. He crashed into the side with an “Oof!” and fell to the ground in a slump.

He was barely getting to his feet again when Jessica walked over and had him once again in the air. “I’m going to ask you again. What are you playing at. What do you know about Berkhart. Where is he. What’s he hiding. What’s the plan here.”

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no!” He shook his head slowly. “He wanted so much to be the one to tell you, I shouldn’t, I won’t. You’re right, he is dead.”

“Talk!” She gave him a shake. “Or you won’t hit asphalt again until Queens.”

“Please, Ms. Jones. I have a _pounding_ headache and you are not helping with all this yelling and shaking. Give me one- one second.”

She slammed his back against the brick wall of the building next to her. “No.”

“Ahhh! One second. One second. Please, just give me- Ah, there she is.”

“Stop with the fucking mindgames. What are you saying.”

“I say what I meant, she finally showed up.”

Jessica furrowed her brow. Then looked back behind her.

Kara Kilgrave walked out of one of the black spots. “Hey there, Jones.”

Jessica froze, eyes wide. Then she moved to hurl the albino back at her.

“Ah ah ah!” She put her hands up. “Don’t move!”

She froze for real that time. Not a single muscle twitched. The albino still suspended in the air. Watched as Kara walked towards her, dragging a baseball bat behind her.

“Could you uh,” Kara said. “Turn back the other way. I need a clear shot, so...”

Jessica turned back. Face to face with the albino. She knew what was coming. It was plainly obvious. But she didn’t want to move in the slightest, and she wanted to face this direction. She wanted these things more than she wanted anything else in this moment. Her only solace was the fact that the albino didn’t have a face so she couldn’t see whatever smug look he was giving her.

Then there was a sharp pain in the back of her skull and everything went black.


	6. Picture Lock

The cops had stormed Harlem, but the criminals were nowhere to be found. Matt scanned as far as his senses would take him. And he found nothing.

He knew, from the outset, that their search was a fruitless one. And the ground troops realized just as quickly. Because of John’s abilities, it was likely that the three of them were nowhere near Harlem. No perimeter was going to stop or catch them. And if they didn’t want to be found, which did appear to be the case for the moment, then there was nothing any of them could do.

The street where this had started lay bare. Even the officers weren’t particularly interested in it. Matt stopped by to grab his dropped baton. And after that his attention was drawn to a rooftop several blocks away. He smelled blood. Still fresh. He climbed back onto the rooftops and found the one that was most solid, and went towards that.

Spilled blood. Gunpowder residue. Lingering metallic traces. This was probably where Colleen had been injured. But even with the confused, jumbled read he was getting, still surrounded by distortion, it didn’t seem like there were any clues up here.

There was, however, an object sitting near the ledge. Matt hadn’t noticed it at first. That was Colleen’s sword. With the sheath and harness close by.

Matt picked up the blade and sheathed it, and slung it over his shoulder. She would probably want this back. But until then...

* * *

Jessica was floating out and in. Out and in. Like a bad bender, with the headache included. And she fully understood in the moment that when she woke up for real she probably wouldn’t remember this.

Out.

In.

Her arm was slung over somebody’s shoulder. There was an automatic response somewhere in her body still, to prop herself up and take the steps to walk forward, but it was doing an absolute shit job. Whoever was carrying her was doing most the work.

The police barricade was in sight. And then it was right in front of her. One of the officers put up a hand to stop them. He was talking faster the normal.

“I need both of you to stay with us. Does she need emergency services?”

“I’m just trying to get her home.” That was Kara. She was being carried off by Kara. “Can’t you please just let us pass?”

“Uh – yes ma’am.” The officer quickly stepped to the side and let the two of them hobble on.

Out.

In.

The two of them were on the subway. Jessica’s head was propped up on the side of the bench. It seemed oddly empty. Only a dozen other people in the car with them.

She didn’t have the energy to look over at Kara sitting next to her. Her eyes just slid to the side and she managed to catch a look. Kara was on her phone. Headphones in. This might’ve been Jessica’s only chance. Reach over, grab her by the face, like her dad. With how strong she was, it would have been so easy. Before this went any further. Before she was trapped with her.

Of course that was a distant fantasy at best. She couldn’t even tilt her head, let alone lift her arms. And what little brainpower Jessica had left was horrified at the desire to murder a kid like that.

Out.

In.

They were back to hobbling, Jessica’s arm on Kara’s shoulder. Down a street. Outside of Manhattan it looked like. The sun was bright, at that afternoon annoyance point where it was right in her eyes all the time. She wanted it to go away. She really just wanted to sleep.

Kara led the two of them over to the side entrance of a building. Pulled her wallet (on a chain) out with her free hand and put it to the scanner on the door. Light went green, lock clicked open. The two went inside and moved towards the elevator.

Out.

Jessica shot up. Heavy breathing. Immediately she was looking around to try and figure out where she was. Dark room. Single dim bulb hanging above her. Chair opposite to her.

So great, she was in some kind of torture chamber. That was reassuring. As she fidgeted in her seat, there was a sharp, scratching noise. Metal on metal. She looked down and saw an excessive length of steel cable wrapped around her torso, pinning her arms to her side and her legs to the plastic chair underneath her.

“Jesus, you don’t stay down long, do you?” Kara said from behind her.

Jessica started craning her neck, left and right and back to try and see, but Kara must’ve been right behind her.

“You little fuck.” Jessica pulled and arched and jumped. She couldn’t break the cabling, but the chair wasn’t bolted down. “When I get out of here, I’m going to-”

“Calm down, Jones.”

Jessica’s panic disappeared. She settled down in the chair, the cord kept biting into her skin but she couldn’t care if she wanted to.

She really wanted to.

Kara walked around to Jessica’s front and took a seat in the chair opposite her. Just stared at Jones. That carefree, childish smiling was gone now. Now Kara was staring into Jessica’s eyes with a soft scowl. A resting bitch face if you will.

“What do you want from me here,” Jessica said.

“I hate you.”

Jessica blinked. “That doesn’t answer my question.”

“You know why I hate you Jones? Do you want to know?”

A smile creeped up the corner of Jessica’s mouth. Somehow she knew it would come to this. And after all this headache, after getting so far away from it and him and her, it all came back around. She couldn’t help but laugh, even though she probably shouldn’t. Maybe it was because she was feeling weirdly calm at the moment.

“...Is it cause I killed your dad.”

“You killed my dad!” Kara burst to her feet. “You killed him!”

“Of course. Of course! Kara, your dad was a mass murderer and a serial rapist. He had it coming.”

“Just because you don’t like him-”

“Fuck you.”

“What do you want me to say here, huh Jones! Like- Like you keep saying he was this horrible person but I knew him too. I knew him my whole childhood and he was never- never bad to me. I never saw him do any of this shit. And you just want me to believe you? To believe that I didn’t know my dad as well as- as someone who he just, slept with?”

“Yes. I do. Because either you’re lying to me and yourself or you’re in the dark. If you defend that man for one second then you obviously have no idea what kind of creature he was.”

“No! I don’t! I don’t and I’ll never get to know! I’ll never get to see him again, I’ll never get to see what kind of man he became after he left and it’s your fault!”

“Kilgrave wasn’t just some shitty dad, okay. He was a monster!”

“Shut up! Shut up!” Jessica’s lips went tight. “You don’t know shit! You’re the monster, you’re the one who killed him!”

Jessica didn’t say anything. She couldn’t.

Kara ran her fingers through her curly hair. Took a few deep breaths and calmed herself.

“I’m- Well, I’m not sorry. I – Look, I – I know that he was a bad person. I get it, okay. But – why? Why do you- why did you get to decide that he couldn’t get any better? That I would never get to know?”

Because Jessica had tried that already. She’d tried everything. But she couldn’t exactly say that.

Kara took another deep breath. Her gaze hardened.

“You can speak again. But look, I want you to only tell me the absolute, complete truth. I already know all about you, Jones. I know what you’ve done, and I know what’s been done to you, and you know exactly where I’m coming from on this. I know you’ve been where I am before. So say it.”

Jessica tried to keep her trap shut. Force the teeth back together. But they pried apart against her will anyways. “...Yes.”

“Say it.”

“When... When my mom... When Trish...”

“She killed your mom. It was the right thing to do, wasn’t it? She was a monster, after all.”

Jessica couldn’t help but nod. All that pain she’d tried to numb was coming back to her. Her chest was on fire. Her eyes were almost squeezed shut.

“And how did you feel about that?”

Jessica swallowed. She was about to say it. She couldn’t stop. “...I hated her.”

“Exactly.”

Jess took a deep breath, now that she’d done what she was asked. “...How the hell do you know about any of that. The news said that I-”

“Well, you hero types know what a good team up can do for you, don’t you.” She walked over to the door and banged on it. “She’s all yours.”

The door burst open. A light shined in from behind it, from some other room. The guy silhouetted in the doorframe was pretty bulky. But all that bulk wasn’t natural. Big shoulderpads, a big helmet, a wide cape, masking the form of his body.

Jessica’s eyes narrowed. She knew what the silhouette looked like. But that shouldn’t have been possible. But at the same time, this was the kind of shit these people loved to pull.

He stepped into the light. Same emerald suit. Same golden clips. Same fishbowl helmet. A distinct lack of a crimson stain across his chest.

“Jessica Jones, I’ve been expecting you.”

“...You’re dead.”

He chuckled. And then laughed. “And you are naive. You call yourself an investigator, falling for such a simple trick like that.”

Ugh... “So what do _you_ want with me. How far up this chain do I have to work.”

“I,” he dramatically flourished a hand towards his chest. Jessica already hated this guy. “Want to know what you know. You’re an investigator, what have you turned up in your investigation?”

“You didn’t need to kidnap me to find that out.”

“That’s what I am here for, my associate however,” he gestured towards Kara. “She’s after a little more from you. And I respect that.”

Jess looked between the two of them. “...Daniel Berkhart, Hollywood failure, frequenter of superhero conspiracy websites. I liked your work in the Cap docu-series though.”

A pause. She couldn’t see his face, so it was a pause that was hard to read. But hopefully that was something good.

Another chuckle. He reached up and lifted the helmet off of his head.

Jessica studied his face. It was him alright. Sharp cheekbones, wide nose, that jaw that was just a bit too long. The image of the corpse was burned into her mind, but now that she saw him when he wasn’t lying dead, she could compare it to the production pictures she’d found looking him up. He had been clean shaven back then, with his black hair kept in a close cropped bowl cut. A bit of stubble had grown in sense then. His hair was still bowl-shaped but now it was messier, unkempt. He obviously had a couple of blip years on him. A couple extra lines around his eyes, at the corners of his mouth. A couple stray gray hairs in his beard.

“So the corpse was-”

“A brilliant fake? I admit I didn’t lean on my training in movie magic to accomplish that, but I’m still well aware of New York’s vibrant underground. A special anesthetic that can render the user catatonic. An anesthetic that brings on hallucinations that I spent many a month training to overcome. And you and your partner bought it, hook line and sinker.”

“...I was going to say planned.”

“Ah-hah.” He popped the helmet back on and placed that hand back on his chest. Jess sighed. “Well, I knew as soon as I prepared to clash blades with the great Jessica Jones, exactly who I was clashing blades with. I knew you would find my hideout sooner or later – and you delivered on finding it much, much sooner. I needed the time, the time to finish the next step, the time to find my new base of operations.”

“...And that next step was...”

“Oh hoh hoh hoh, Ms. Jones,” god please shut the fuck up, “you can’t expect everything to be that easy, can you? After all, I still don’t know everything you’ve already learned about me.”

Jessica smirked. “I know quite a bit. You’re not very good at covering your tracks.”

“Ms. Kilgrave, if you would.”

“Tell the truth, Jones,” Kara said.

Shit. Jess grit her teeth. “I know that... Daniel Berkhart orchestrated the super attacks... I know that he somehow rigged a bunch of properties to be under the name of Quentin Beck... and I know that someone,” her eyes slid over to Kara. Kara shot back with the bird. “Blew up one of those properties and now the police have reclaimed them. They’re going to be auctioned off in a few days, so good luck with that.”

“I thank you for your kind concerns, Jessica Jones. And unfortunately, you’re quite on the money. However, as someone once taught me, a good director never puts all his eggs in one basket. For any given scene.”

“Big talk for a guy who never made it past daytime television.”

“Laugh while you can, Jessica Jones. We’ll see how long you last.” He turned back for the door.

“What’s with your goons swarming the city again. Feeling frustrated on your properties getting busted, decide to just torch a lower class neighborhood to feel better.”

“If that’s what you choose to believe.”

Jessica squirmed in her bindings. “You’re incompetent. You’re impotent. You’re a failure no matter what you try, Berkhart. Ask me you already have.”

“But I didn’t ask you, Jessica Jones. Now would you please continue rotting in peace and excuse me.”

“You’re-”

The door slammed shut behind him.

Jessica sighed and looked to Kara. “You can do so much better than working with that douchebag.”

Kara looked at her. Firm scowl still, with arms crossed. Eventually she said, “Don’t go anywhere” and left as well.

And then Jessica was left in a dark room, tied to a chair, in the hands of two people who hated her guts. How did this keep happening to her?

* * *

Colleen Wing stared up at a massive wall mural, painted on top of featureless concrete. A picture of a flying, coiled dragon, Japanese style. With scales crimson red and whiskers yellow as the sun. It had eyes that seemed to follow Colleen no matter where she went. Eyes that burned like coals. It snorted smoke into Colleen’s face, acrid and smoky and rough. A deep growl bellowed from its throat. It coiled and twisted as it approached Colleen, all the while those burning eyes never moving off of her. And then it lunged and tore its massive teeth into Colleen’s forearm. Set to tear off the Iron Fist insignia itself, and whatever else of her came with it.

Colleen’s eyes flashed open. Her breathing was heavy. She wanted to sit up but there was a dull pain wracking her entire body that put a stop to that. So she just kept laying down.

Bed was comfortable at least. Smelled like hand sanitizer but it wasn’t bad. She pushed herself to more of a sitting position at least. So she could look around. She was in the hospital. Clean white walls and tiny, less than comfortable chairs, and sheets just everywhere. There was a clamp on her finger hooked up to a vitals machine.

“Hey.” Luke Cage was sitting on the side of the bed next to hers. “You’re awake.”

“Yeah, but I might be regretting it.” She was sore all over, painful but dull, in that ‘pumped full of painkillers’ kind of way. “I’m guessing we got our shit kicked in?”

Luke let out a snort. “Yeah. Just a bit.”

“What’s the situation? Are people okay?”

“Well, after...” he sighed through grit teeth. “After things went south, Misty and her people stepped in.”

“They get em?”

“No. They didn’t.”

“So... what’s happening?”

He shrugged. “They disappeared. Those guys, the supers, they hopped right into a portal and vanished.”

“Wait, wait, they just – left? Just gone? What, why?”

“I don’t know. But those holes around Harlem, they’re still there. Whatever the plan here was, I don’t think it’s over yet.”

“So let’s go.” Colleen pushed herself up and winced in pain.

“Woah woah woah.” Luke walked over and gently pushed her back down. “I’m going. They’re releasing me today, I’m in tip top shape. I’ll go, I’ll find them, and I’ll take care of it. You, on the other hand, need to rest. And heal.”

Colleen groaned and sunk back into the mattress. “What about Matt and Jess?”

Luke sighed. He was avoiding looking at her. “They’re MIA.”

“They’re what?” Colleen sat back up.

“Look, I saw Matt run back in after you guys saved me. You know how he is, you know how seriously he takes this kind of thing, he’s probably hitting the streets right now, doing exactly what you and I want to be out there doing.”

“Okay but Jessica _clearly_ doesn’t. What about her, is she okay?”

“Jessica’s... tough.”

“Luke.”

“I don’t know, okay? I don’t know.” He ran a hand over his head. “I haven’t seen her since we got separated. I’m worried. I’m freaking out. But there’s nothing you can do right now, let me handle this. I’ll find her. I promise.”

Colleen frowned. She wanted to be out there helping, not stuck in bed. But... her shoulder and gut were starting to burn again. She couldn’t fight worth shit like this. Was just gonna get hurt worse. She knew that.

“...Fine. Go. Go ahead.”

“You gonna be alright?”

“I’ll join up with you as soon as I can.”

He nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”

“And I’m sure Harlem will be glad to see you’re okay.”

“Yeah, better go break the news.” He walked over to the door. Stopped in its frame and looked back. “Oh, and Colleen?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for saving my life.”

Colleen looked up at him. Blinked a couple times as she took in the words. “Yeah- Yeah. No problem.”

“I’ll catch you later.”

“Yeah, later.”

He left. Colleen was left alone in the room.

She raised her fist up in front of her face. Steadied her breathing and gathered her chi and funneled it all into her hand.

Nothing.

* * *

Luke was happy to see Harlem again. Harlem wasn’t happy to see Luke. He’d only made it a few blocks before an entire mob had crowded around him. Brothers and sisters all demanding answers and solutions, and all at once too.

“What are you gonna do about this Luke?” “I can’t get to work there’s holes in the road.” “You gotta do something Luke.” “Man, did you go soft from the blip? Or was it running that nightclub?”

“Hey hey _hey_,” Luke yelled. “Uncalled for.”

“Yo you did get that ass beat though.”

“Alright. Okay. I got it, thanks. Look, I’m not gonna rest until I get this thing done with, okay? I haven’t forgotten where I come from, and this neighborhood is still important to me. Now, look, alright I lost round 2. It happens. I’m holding that L. But you all forgot that I took round 1 no problem. This ain’t over, and I don’t stay down. Now clear out, go home, stay safe.”

There was a mass grumbling but they seemed content with that answer. Slowly the crowd dispersed. A couple stuck around, but they were just watching Luke, see what he’d do.

One kid stayed behind.

Couldn’t be older than 17. Black kid with some scraggly hair, kept close. Bit of peach fuzz on his lip. He rubbed the back of his head and walked up to Luke like he was tempted to turn around and run with every step.

“Can I help you?” Luke asked.

“Hey, yeah, Luke, man,” the kid said. “I – I mean- Look, you can- you’re gonna stop this, right?”

“Of course.”

“I mean... soon? Fast-like?”

“... I can try. You okay? Is there something you know?”

“Nah, man, it’s just like – ya know – the struggle, man.”

“The struggle. Yeah I know that.”

“Nah it’s just – my moms, she doesn’t like New York anymore. With the aliens and the – the shit with everyone coming back. We had to fight hard to get our apartment back and now we ain’t even safe here man. She wants to move back to Arkansas. But man this is my city, man. My neighborhood. You gotta do something, man.”

“I will. This is my city too.” He gave him a firm clap on the shoulder. “And that means standing firm and fighting when it’s in trouble.”

“Yeah, cool.” He brushed the hand off and backed away a couple steps. “Just – makin sure you’re doing your job. Ya know?”

“I’m relying on you to keep me honest here.”

“Yeah. Yeah! Yeah. Aight cool.” And then he turned the corner and was off.

Luke Cage huffed. Now that he was locked into doing this thing... where to start?

* * *

It had been 10 hours since the invasion of Harlem. Matt Murdock had spent 10 hours in a tumble dryer that somehow never moved. Every step he took the images of Harlem slid around him, slid over each other, until he was no longer sure where he was. Or which of the dozens of Matt Murdocks shambling through the city was actually him and which were wayward reflections.

Police swarmed through Harlem like an angry beehive. They had quickly figured out what Matt had quickly figured out. The criminals who had done this, Berkhart’s men, they weren’t hanging around here, and their base camp could be anywhere. Literally anywhere, depending on how far John could reach. The police were already investigating elsewhere, across Manhattan and deeper into the Bronx and Queens than Matt could hear. But they couldn’t abandon their presence in Harlem, for the exact same reason Matt couldn’t.

Every two hours there was an attack. It wasn’t on the dot. Once it was only an hour forty-seven. Another time it took two hours and eighteen minutes. But every two hours one of Berkhart’s muscle, either Shappe or Burbank, would pop out of one of those holes and do something. Shappe would snatch a purse, or a wallet. He left 67-year old Shelly Curtis with a deep scar across her side to get the 32 dollars she had on her. Or Burbank would appear, knock someone to the ground, strong enough to give them a concussion, fire into the air and send everyone on the street scattering. They were meaningless crimes, meant to incite fear, meant to show the simple fact that they could get away with it. Despite Matt running as fast as he could, he could only ever make it to the scene once they were gone. And the police only just after.

But now he was under the cover of night. He’d done too much work recently in broad daylight. Where he could be seen. Now it was time for him to push his advantages. The next attack was coming. Everyone was on their toes, just waiting for it to happen.

There were hundreds of footsteps in the surrounding blocks. That was low for this part of the city. People were staying home. Staying indoors. It still sounded like a cacophony to Matt, reflected onto him hundreds of times.

One set stood out in the crowd. The fact that it was just one tipped Matt off before anything else. But the heavy clomping of metal made it clear what was coming next. Matt took off. Leaping, vaulting, rolling across rooftops to get there as quick as he could, before he could get away again.

There was that burst of air again. Shappe crashed into an alleyway. There was already a shout. There was a man there, factory worker from the smell of him. On instinct he backed up, but that just put himself deeper into an alley with no exit. Shappe pulled himself out of the wall and shook his head clear.

Matt was a block away. He slid down the side of a fire escape and landed on ground level and kept running.

“Hey buddy,” Shappe said. “Ain’t ya heard, there’s a new tax for living round these parts. So what you got to pay me with.”

“Hey man back off, I’m serious.”

The worker was going for his back pocket. There was a switchblade back there. He might reach it in time. But he might not. Matt was at the mouth of the alley now, he rolled across to the wall closest to Shappe. Keep to the shadows. Keep out of sight until the time to strike.

“Really sorry mate, you know I’m only doing my job, but we got a no exception policy.” He brandished the chipped kitchen knives in either hand. “With a strict penalty.”

The worker had his hand in his back pocket, wrapped around the handle of the knife. Matt could hear their muscles tensing, both ready to spring forward.

Close quarters. Some distortions, but not enough to throw Matt off. He was sure about this.

There was a burst of air. Sooner than Matt had expected. He had no choice but to make his move now.

There were two attacks and Matt needed to divert both of them. The katana slid from its sheath, and Matt braced it against Shappe’s knives, the metal screeched off of one another, but Shappe and Matt skid to a stop before either touched the worker. Then he pulled his knife, and the hand that wasn’t holding the katana shot back to hold his arm back. Matt stood between the two of them, neither had seen him coming. Both were surprised. That was good. He kicked Shappe in the stomach.

Shappe stumbled back. Matt sheathed the katana again and laid into his face, right hook, right hook, shove. He hit the ground. Matt straddled his chest, pinned his arms to the ground, and started waling. Matt could smell the narcotics in his blood as it splashed across the walls. But this guy, he was numb to the pain something fierce. He refused to go down.

Something- Someone crashed into Matt’s side. Knocked him off of Shappe and sent him tumbling. The altitude changed. He was tumbling onto a rooftop. He couldn’t find Shappe or the worker anymore.

John got to his feet and cracked his neck. “My, you are an intense fellow, aren’t you. Ah, but, perhaps overconfident. Maybe? Yes, probably.”

Matt got up to one knee, fist on the concrete to keep him up.

“The shadows are the ally of the man with no eyes. But, and, perhaps this is a new experience for you, but you aren’t the only one of those anymore.”

John liked to talk. That gave Matt enough time to catch his breath. He got himself back to his feet, got his hands back up.

“Ah, no, you misunderstand.” John also put his hands up, in surrender. “You’ve already proven yourself well enough. No, see, ah, I do not mind if you continue on, doing what it is you do. Stop crimes, punch bad guys, but, I cannot allow you to take these men out of commission. Not yet, at least, perhaps have some patience. Go home. Sleep it off. You’ll feel better in the morning. But then again, you are something of a night owl aren’t you. I apologize, I-”

Matt threw one of his batons. It pinged off of John’s temple. He recoiled and grabbed at the spot. Matt was already rushing him. John looked up, he had no pithy remark or rambling statement, he just took two steps back and the space in front of him distorted and he was gone. Matt barreled straight through the distortion.

Sound. A wall of sound from every direction. Matt flinched back and covered his ears. What was that? Where was he?

Asphalt below him, dry paint, heartbeats surrounding him, mechanical thrumming, burning.

The middle of the street. It was a car horn.

He was surrounded by these distortions, and so he wasn’t sure where the car actually was, or how to move away from it. He felt around blindly, like he often pretended to do, touched a hand down on the car’s hood which prompted more honking, which made him wince. A few more steps and his foot touched down on concrete, raised, the sidewalk. Matt steadied himself against a brick wall and caught his breath. Caught his bearings. Tried to figure out what was real and what wasn’t again.

Two more hours until his next chance.

* * *

Jessica had spent the first couple hours struggling and squirming, looking for a method through which she could break her bindings even though she knew she couldn’t go anywhere if she did. And after that the bruising and soreness in her body overtook her and she got tired. And she fell to a weird state of sitting on the edge of unconsciousness but never quite teetering over into passing out. Or, maybe she did. The two were inseparable as she was.

Now that she thought about it, she probably had a concussion.

She wasn’t sure how much time had passed. It was a shitton. Jessica was sitting by herself in the dark for what felt like forever.

The door opposite her opened and light flooded into the room. Jessica had to squinch her eyes shut to avoid being blinded.

“Lunchtime,” said Kara. She dropped a McDonalds bag at Jessica’s feet. “I’m gonna untie you for a bit. Don’t attack me. Don’t try to leave this room. Okay?”

“If you’re expecting a thank you, please, hold your breath.”

“I don’t have to feed you at all you know.”

“Common human decency would push you to, but maybe that got thrown out the window about the time you bought the steel cables.”

“Whatever, just eat.”

The cables fell from Jessica and she groaned and swore and rubbed the spots where they had been digging into her skin.

She dug into the bag. A plain-ass regular hamburger. That was it.

“Really. Couldn’t even spring for the meal. Or at least a big mac or something. I know you didn’t pay for this.”

“Take it as an insult. That’s what it’s supposed to be.”

Jessica wanted to complain more but she was really fucking hungry. She actually had to hold herself back tearing the wrapper open and scarfing the sandwich down. When she finished she was actually panting a little.

Kara moved to tie her back up.

“What are you doing Kara.”

“What’s it look like?”

“What are you doing working with Berkhart. He’s a superhero fetishist, he only cares about you for your powers.”

“I know. It’s a working relationship. Sure you know all about that.”

“Then what are you getting out of this.”

“He promised some cash, which is nice.”

“Is it. You don’t pay for anything.”

“Mostly though, what I’m getting out of this is you.”

“What do you _want_ from me Kara. I’ve been tied up here for a full fucking day now and you haven’t said or done thing one to me. Get it fucking over with for Christ’s sake.”

Kara took a deep breath, through her nose. “You’ll see. Soon enough.”

“Fucking hell.”

Kara tightened the cable around her arms again and went for the door.

“Kara, wait.”

“Nah.”

“Please.” The word burned in her throat, or maybe that was the dehydration. “However you felt about... about him, be reasonable about this-”

Kara spun at her. “I don’t want to!” Fists clenched at her side. “I know this isn’t reasonable, I’m not stupid, Jones! I know what the news said my dad did! I know why you did it! I fucking get it, but – but being reasonable about feels like shit! Trying to talk myself down and consider everyone’s side feels like shit! I don’t want to be reasonable about it! You killed my dad! Why should I be reasonable about that? I don’t want to!”

“You-”

“Shut up!”

Jessica shut her mouth. She had nothing she wanted to say anymore.

Kara stormed out, and slammed the door behind her.

So Jessica was left in the room again. Alone in the dark, with nothing but her thoughts and the warm embrace of passing out for the next forever.

* * *

There was a special technique one could use with the iron fist, Danny had used it on Colleen, where chi could be channeled to a wound to heal it faster and burn away impurities. Obviously Colleen had tried to do that as soon as she could.

She sat up in her hospital bad and channeled chi down into her arm and-

A sharp pain shot through her mind. For a second an image of that dragon flashed through her vision again.

Not that, then. Colleen was frustrated.

Her chi was off balance. That much was obvious. But she didn’t know what to do to rebalance it again. And this all, this was the worst time for it to happen.

She shifted uncomfortably. The pain in her head only compounded the pain in her shoulder, and her stomach. Despite all of the horse tranqs they had her on here, everything still hurt.

But what she needed right now was meditation. Meditation would help her center herself, it would clean her system and help her heal faster. Something that Bakuto had taught her, was the key to meditating while in pain was not to try and fight through the pain but to accept it as a fact of one’s existence in the moment. Don’t dwell on it, but don’t deny it, and it will lessen and allow one to see clearly.

Colleen closed her eyes and steadied her breathing. She let the pain flow into and through her. Let the pain become a part of her. And then let the pain go.

It wasn’t until the tears started rolling down her cheeks that she realized how much pain she had.

The wounds hurt, but, the frustration. The anxiety. Being stuck in a hospital bed while New York was under siege and she was supposed to protect it, Danny had given her this power so that she could protect it in his stead. She felt impotent. She felt like a failure.

But she had to let that pass.

She sniffed, and wiped her nose on her hospital gown. Meditate, let the pain pass, and so too will the wounds.

* * *

Matt was not great with time. He lost track of it easily when he got absorbed into his work. It was worse for him since, he didn’t have the sun or the moon to tell him even approximately when it was. His own natural cycles were pretty good at telling the difference between night and day, but that kind of went out the window after 24 straight hours. And with his senses going haywire as they were.

As best as he could tell, he was coming up on the end of the third day since they had arrived. With an attack every 2 hours.

Matt couldn’t fool himself into thinking he wasn’t needed. Several of these attacks would have gone south if he hadn’t been there. No one else could respond fast enough. He had to keep going, for as long as it would take.

He was in the middle of stopping one right now. Back room of a grocery store. Full on kidnapping. Young man, scared out of his mind, chained up to a pole. Carl Burbank was fiddling with the ammunition in his arm.

Matt was paranoid. Every step was cautious. He didn’t want this one to get away. Especially this one. Didn’t want to put the kid’s life in danger. Didn’t want to alert anyone. Didn’t want John to notice him. One false move and they would both get spirited away to where Matt couldn’t follow. His breathing was kept steady, shallow, and silent. He could barely pick up his own movements. He didn’t take the risk to speak, not to anyone. He kept in mind the exact position of every distortion that might be in his potential area and stuck away from them. The shadows wouldn’t help him, he had to stay truly out of sight.

While he worked his way towards the Employee’s Only section, he heard Burbank talking. Monologuing.

“You know, people don’t believe me when I say I do this for the art. Guess it makes sense. MO doesn’t exactly line up. Obviously I mostly just do it for the money, but clients don’t like it when you just say that. And people think, all the artists in the murder world use knives and such, something up and close and personal.” He flicked his arm closed and flipped it around to the pistol. “I’ve been in the army long enough to know that there’s a beauty in what’s left behind from a .45.”

Matt slipped through the loose Employee’s Only door barely leaving behind a rustle in his wake. He could smell the sweat rolling down the kid’s forehead. Just a little bit closer. Just a little bit closer and he could take out one of Berkhart’s legs.

“I don’t get to share this with many people. Suffer for your art and all that, I suppose. It makes a good cover, and I don’t want the authorities to actually know. But you’re lucky, you get to know. You weren’t just some paycheck. You will be something beautiful.”

The door burst open and Luke Cage charged in. Matt stopped and turned his attention. So did Burbank. Even the kid was shocked.

Burbank turned back to the kid and aimed his gun. Matt tossed one of his batons. Burbank’s hand was knocked aside and he fired into the ground.

Matt rushed behind him and laid into the soft flesh of his back. Striking as hard as he could with the time that he had, bashing into his spine with his steel batons. Carl only barely buckled. He turned and swung an arm into Matt’s gut. He was launched back into a stack of ramen, that crunched and crumpled beneath him. Burbank aimed with his sub-machine gun arm. Matt ducked and rolled underneath the spray and drew the katana, reverse grip, and slashed across Burbank’s stomach. The taste of blood filled the air.

The hammer of Burbank’s pistol knocked back. He hadn’t noticed it pointed at him.

Luke’s hand wrapped around the barrel. The explosion was muffled by his skin. The bullet clanged off of his palm.

There was a burst of air. Shappe slammed into Luke’s side. He turned back and took a swipe, but Shappe was already gone. They both turned back to Burbank. He was gone too.

The kid was still there. Matt sighed.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“Same as you, looks like.” Luke walked over to the kid. Took the chain in his hand and crunched it to powder. Let it fall loose. The kid shook the chains off and yanked the gag from his mouth. He didn’t have anything to say though, just took deep gulps of air.

“I almost had him.”

“I could see that.” He gave the kid a pat on the back, told him he’d walk him home. The kid nodded, but barely heard him. He shuffled out to the front of the store. “Were you going to kill him?”

“I was going to injure him.”

“Put him in the hospital? Break his legs? Break his back?”

“You telling me I shouldn’t?”

“Matt.” Luke put a hand on his shoulder. “We’re worried about you. You’ve been at this for days. Straight. Your judgement is clouded. Not to mention your skills, you almost got shot back there.”

“Yeah. Thanks for the save. I’m going to keep working.”

“Matt. Take a break. You’re not the only ‘superhero’ in Manhattan.”

“You can’t get there as fast as me. I take a break and people get hurt.”

“You’re gonna get hurt if you keep this up.”

“I can take it.”

“Here’s an idea, when you hear or sense something or whatever, why don’t you call the police instead of rushing in yourself.”

“Can’t take the risk.” Matt shook his head. “John can see everything, and hear everything, through his portals. I can’t make noise or they get away again. I can’t- I have to be as perfect as possible, or they get away again.”

“You’re never going to do that going on 4 days without sleep. Let us, me, and Colleen, and Misty, let us handle this.”

“Colleen huh. How is she. Out of the hospital yet.”

Luke huffed. “Whatever.” He shoved Matt away. “Get yourself killed. See how many people you help then.”

Luke walked back towards the door. Turned back over his shoulder. Matt was already gone. Making his way onto the roof.

He pushed all the stuff Luke said out of his mind. He couldn’t afford to focus on that right now. His thoughts were instead on something he had said himself.

John could see and hear through his portals. But, that was an advantage that they shared.

The shadows were the ally of the man with no eyes. So too, was blackness.

* * *

Luke recognized the kid. It was the kid who came up to him a few days ago, and asked him to settle this soon. He couldn’t help but feel he’d let the kid down by now. Still, the least he could do was make sure he got home safe. Or at least, feeling safe. Wouldn’t want to send him back to walk the streets at night after what just happened.

He was quiet for most of the walk. Luke at least got his name, Demitri. Demitri was jumpy, always looking over his shoulder. Luke stayed calm for him. Eyes ahead. He already had a strong feeling that Berkhart’s men wouldn’t show up again, not for a bit at least.

They got to Demitri’s apartment without issue. Without even a bump. Demitri was just staring at his shoes. Luke knocked on the door.

There was quiet shuffling on the other side. A short pause. And then quick fumbling. The door opened and, the woman Luke could only assume was Demitri’s mom stood there.

“Demitri? Oh my God!” She pulled him in close. “Oh my God, Demitri. Demitri are you okay?”

He didn’t say anything. Luke could see his face scrunching, trying to force everything back down.

“He’s alright,” Luke said. “Just a little shaken.”

“You saved him?”

Luke struggled to say yes, but, “I just want to help any way I can. Things are... crazy right now.”

“Oh my God.” She was starting to break down as well. “Oh my God, thank you so much. I cannot, I can’t thank you enough. Thank you.”

Luke nodded. He didn’t know what he ought to be feeling right now. This woman was in tears thanking him, he’d just saved this kid’s life. But even after all this, it was weird to think of himself as a guy who ‘saved’ people. And there was still so much more to worry about past these two.

“Go inside Demitri,” his mom said. “Go – Go get packed up. We’re leaving. Tonight.”

He pulled back. Didn’t move from his spot in the doorway but looked at her.

“Go, Demitri. Now.”

He took a few deep gulps of air. Sniffed the snot back into his nose. “But-”

“No buts. You could’ve been hurt, we’re not staying around this another minute.”

He turned to Luke. Took another second to steel himself. “M- Man. Why didn’t you do somethin’! You- You said you were gonna fix this!”

“Demitri! Do not yell at the man who just saved your life!”

“You told me you were going to fix this!”

“Get inside, now!”

He trudged in. Tears were already streaming down his cheeks. His mom stepped out and closed the door behind her.

“I’m so sorry about that,” she said.

“No, it’s – it’s fine. I did, tell him that.”

“Do not be so hard on yourself, Mr. Cage. You’ve done more than enough, if you weren’t there, he- my son-” She swallowed hard.

“I know.” He took a deep breath. “Listen. Take care of him. I – I can’t exactly tell you not to move out, like this. I can’t disagree with that decision.”

“We don’t have a choice right now. With Harlem turning into a warzone like this, worst that it’s been since the aliens invaded.”

“Which time?” He chuckled. Then sighed. “I just – I wish I could do more.”

“Trust me, we all do. Not a second that goes by I don’t think of, pounding that crackhead that stabbed Mrs. Curtis. But you’re the strongest of all of us, and even then, you’re just one man. We all have our limits.”

“Thanks for trying to comfort me. I know it can’t be easy.”

“It’s not. I know what Demitri’s going through. But I’d rather him be pained and angry and still with us.”

“He’s going to need your help to get through this.”

“Don’t I know it. You keep doing what you’re doing, Mr. Cage.”

He nodded. “Same to you.”

She gave one last smile and slipped through the door behind her. Luke sighed, ran a hand over his head, and went back out.

* * *

Matt dropped from a rooftop. Burbank was back. Shame. He wanted Shappe.

His foot splashed in a puddle at the alley’s mouth. Immediately Burbank’s head went up. That was fine. Stealth wasn’t on his mind right now.

“Run.”

Burbank turned and ran. Matt chased after him.

His sub-machine gun arm whipped behind him. Rapid fire sparks, explosions, bullets flew. Matt jumped onto a dumpster, flipped over the stream of fire, pushed off the wall, tackled Burbank to the ground.

His batons were already in his hands. He swung down. Felt the metal impact into his spine, right between the shoulder blades. He swung again, Burbank rolled, Matt hit the ground. Burbank got his right hand up, still a hand, blocked Matt’s next swing. Sparks flew. The metal on metal screeched into Matt’s ears. Too loud, too shrill, too sharp to block out. Burbank kicked into his stomach, Matt couldn’t do anything but take it and stagger back a few steps.

Burbank hopped back towards a distortion. This was the part Matt was interested in. He followed, walking, fast enough to strike some fear in his heart.

The distortion shifted, and through it was somewhere else entirely. And Matt focused as hard as he could on what he could find on the other side of that rift.

It opened out onto a street. The asphalt had been replaced some time in the last three months. It was still well worn. Imperceptible tire tracks lined it, up and down, and had already caused a few dents and dips. On one side of the street, Matt could smell lamb, and bread, gyro place. Next to it was, metal. Circuits. Computer repair store. On the other side of the street was an apartment complex. Not many conversations going on. A few switched on TVs. One man, despite it being the small hours of the morning by now, answered his phone. “Jackson Consultation, can I-”

And the distortion closed. That was all Matt could get, for now. He hopped up a fire escape, climbed back onto the familiar rooftop, sighed, and pulled out his phone.

* * *

Colleen sat on her hospital bed, doped up on painkillers, and watching Judge Judy. Something in her brain recognized that she was imbibing completely substanceless trash, but on the other hand, that Judy sure knew how to put a no good cheater in his place.

She jumped when her phone went off. Nearly jumped again when she saw it was Matt who was calling.

“Matt?” she answered. “Matt are you okay?”

There was a moment of silence. Then Matt said “I need your help.”

He didn’t sound like he was dying at least. “What- What’s going on, what do you need?”

“Do you have a laptop with you?”

“Uh, yeah. I got mine right here.” She pulled it onto her lap.

“I’ve got a lead on where they might be based. But I only managed to get a few details.”

“Oh. Yeah- Yeah sure, let me hear them and I’ll see what I can find.”

“Jackson Consultation. Run out of an apartment. Across the street from a gyro restaurant and a computer repair shop. Roads repaved in the last few months.”

“Okay let me...” it took a minute for the computer to turn on. She pulled up Google Maps while holding the phone with her shoulder, and started plugging in information.

“Yeah I’m finding a couple places with that name. But uh, nothing matching the description in Manhattan. Or Long Island.”

Matt patiently waited for her in silence. Made the whole process a lot more awkward.

There were a handful of Jackson Consultations across New York. Nothing that matched the description Matt game. She kept scrolling out and out, the farther she went the more unsure she was about what she would find. Until she found Meadow Hills Luxury Apartments. Right across the street from Gyros 2 Go Halal and Laptop Computer Repair.

“Wait, hold on, I think I got something. Maybe. There’s a place in Jersey.” She went to his website. “Yeah. Yeah it is in an apartment complex.”

“Text me the address.”

“Hold on. Let me get ready, I can call Luke, and we can meet you there.”

“I can do it faster on my own. And you’re still hurt.”

“Not too hurt for this.” She had already pushed herself out of bed and was pulling the IV out of her arm.

“Colleen-”

“I have the address. You don’t. We’re helping.”

Matt paused. “Fine.”

“I’ll send you the address and we can meet up there.”

“Fine.” She could tell he wasn’t happy about this. But also she didn’t care.

“See you then.” She hung up, pulled her hospital gown off and started pulling her clothes on. Had to pause when one of her stitches was pulled. Don’t bend that way, got it. And she reached for her sword, before realizing that she didn’t have it.

Oh yeah. She’d have to get that back at some point.

* * *

Jessica Jones had spent most of her recent time unconscious. She didn’t know how long she’d been here. It’d been, probably more than a day since the last “lunchtime”, maybe two, so the promise of consistent food was out.

The thought had crossed her mind, more than once, that she might die here. Along with hazy dreams and hallucinations in the dark.

She was tired, sore, hungry, fried, her mouth felt like cotton and tasted like sand, her eyelids felt glued shut. She should’ve struggled more against these bindings when she had a chance, now she barely had the muscle left to lift her head.

When the door opened, the flood of light made Jessica flinch so hard she almost started crying. It took – a while, more than a few seconds, more than a dozen even, for her eyes to adjust.

Kara stood in the doorway. No McD’s bag, so that was a disappointment.

She didn’t do anything. Didn’t say anything, didn’t walk in, just stood there, staring at her.

“Can I help you,” Jessica croaked out.

Kara huffed.

“No questions. Comments. Threats.”

She took a step inside and closed the door behind her.

Jessica sighed. “I know what you want Kara. I know why you’re here. And why I’m here.”

That got a reaction at least. Her brow scrunched. “What do _you_ know?”

“I know that Berkhart wasn’t the one who decided to kidnap me. You were. This is your ‘payment’ for helping out with the plan. If he wanted something from me, he’d have worked harder for it by now, this is all you.”

“So what if I-”

“You want to kill me.”

The words died in Kara’s throat. Jessica could see her swallow from across the dark room.

“You want to kill me. But you don’t have the nerve. So you’ve got me tied up, in a dark room, while you wait to muster up the courage.”

Jessica stretched in her bindings. This was the most she’d done in god knows how many hours. And she leaned forward to look at Kara. Dead on.

“You know it would be easy, you know because that’s how your dad did it. All you’d have to do is say the word. But you’re scared, you’re scared that you might have something so horrible in you. You’re trying to figure out what I deserve, cause you hold all the power and you don’t know what to do with that yet.”

Kara’s teeth were grit. They were chattering. “You don’t know me,” she shook her head, “you don’t know me.”

Jessica pulled. The chair shifted forward and scraped across the ground. Kara jumped.

“You’re not your father, Kara. You’re not the monster he was. I know that much because if you were then I’d be dead and so would Berkhart and his lackies and like 10 other people probably. I’m tied up talking to a mind controller, I’ve been here before, I know what you can do and I know how this ends so the only thing I can do right now is beg. Be better than him. Don’t become the next person that someone feels like they have to- to kill in order to be free.”

“Shut- You- ...Just....” Kara was breathing heavily now. She kept looking down. Kept closing her eyes. Kept swallowing and looking back up.

It was coming. It was coming.

Jessica held her breath.

* * *

Colleen jogged up to the bright entrance of Meadow Hills. A high rise on main street. Even this late at night, the center of the city was bustling. Luke had to push through the crowds to keep up with her.

Two things were notable about Meadow Hills. One was that it was super high end, floodlights illuminated the glass front, and behind the doors was a concierge. That might be a problem.

The second was that Matt Murdock, the blind lawyer, was loitering off to the side.

“Matt? Matt!” Colleen ran up to him.

He gave her a stern nod, then turned right back towards the building.

“Hey,” Luke ran up, a little out of breath. “I appreciate you waiting up for us and all, but aren’t you worried about giving away your secret?”

“The apartment’s on the 30th floor.” Matt spoke just softly enough to be heard. “No way to get in without going through the lobby. And everyone we’re going to be meeting upstairs already knows.”

“Geez,” Colleen said. “How about some good news.”

“...They have Jessica.”

“You serious?” Luke asked. “Is she okay?”

“She’s not doing great. Vitals are still pumping away, but she’s still, and she’s quiet.”

“That’s not a good sign,” Colleen said. “Not for her at least.”

“I can’t get any more of a read from this distance.”

“Who’s waiting for us?”

“There are a few portals in the apartment. So be prepared for backup at any point. There’s only two people in the apartment right now thought. Burbank, still recovering, and someone I don’t recognize.”

“That’s probably Kilgrave’s kid,” said Luke. “Hit her first.”

“We’re going to have to go in fast and hard. Take out the operation while we have the chance.”

“Priority one should be getting Jessica out. It’s been days, we can’t leave her with them.”

Matt was quiet for a moment. Staring at nothing in particular. It made him hard to read. “Right. But the second we burst in, John’s going to see and he’s going to get backup.”

“You said Burbank’s recovering right? He’s gonna be slow on the uptake. Knock the girl out first, get her quiet as soon as possible, then we focus on Burbank and rush him before he can get prepared. Knock him out, grab Jessica, get out of there before anyone realizes what happened.”

“Just one more problem,” Colleen said. “How do we get up there?”

“Past the doorman? What’s she gonna do, stop us?”

“If she calls up before we can get there, it’s going to be worse than just having to deal with backup,” said Matt. “If they book it, and take Jessica with them, then we lose our lead, and the element of surprise. Don’t think John would be so sloppy as to make this mistake twice.”

“Great.” Luke threw up his hands. “So what’s the plan then.”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“I don’t have a plan for getting in.”

“We’re just winging it? With Jess’s life on the line?”

“Guys,” Colleen said. “Let’s just sneak around the back. Still gotta go through the lobby but maybe reception won’t notice us.”

“No,” Matt said. “There’s ID scanners in the elevators. We need the concierge to take us up.”

“Well.” Colleen picked at her teeth with her tongue. “Shit.”

“Wanna be a delivery guy?” Luke asked.

“If I wanted to go in by myself I could’ve kept the suit on and slipped through the 4th floor,” said Matt.

“Okay, what if you do that,”

“And what?” asked Colleen. “I hide on your back?”

“Just say you’re with me.”

“Why would the person carpooling with you come in for the delivery?”

“I don’t know, it’s just an idea!”

Matt walked past the two of them towards the front door.

“Matt! Wait!” Colleen hissed until she was in view of the front desk after which she tried to look as natural and un-suspicious as possible.

Looks like they were going for it. With or without anyone being ready.

The three of them walked through the doors. Luke stepped forward and took Matt’s arm to guide him. Or pretend to at least.

“Hi,” he said. “We’re here for the, uh, party. In uh...”

“30207,” said Matt. “With Kara.”

“Alright,” the concierge eyed them up, like she didn’t quite believe them. “I’ll just call up and tell her then.”

“Oh,” Colleen butt in. “There’s no need, we’re- She’s expecting us so-” The more Colleen talked, the more suspicious the concierge got of them.

“No,” Matt said. “No, it’s fine. Tell her that Daniel Berkhart and company are here.”

Colleen’s blood went cold in her veins. Jessica was about to die, and it was all her fault. Well, no, it was probably Matt’s. But still, if that message got up to Kara, she’d know something was up, right? Berkhart was dead, and- wait, no, did Kara know that? No but it’d been like a week now she had to know something was up. But the other guys working for him hadn’t figured anything out yet. Hadn’t they?

“Alright, you’re good to go. Just follow me.” She stepped out from behind the desk.

Colleen had to stop from letting her jaw hit the ground. Had to force herself back into the moment so she didn’t just stand in the middle of the lobby staring while the rest of them went up. The three followed the concierge to the elevator. She swiped her card against the card reader, hit floor 30, and then stepped back to let the doors close.

All three of them let out of the breath they were collectively holding.

“Oh my god,” Colleen said. “Holy shit.”

“What the hell man,” Luke said. “Could’ve run that one by us before just going in with it.”

“We don’t exactly have a lot of time on our hands,” Matt said. “I don’t want to let Burbank get away.”

“We’re trying to help you here.”

“Guys,” Colleen said. “We’re in. We’re set. Let’s just do this.” Even if she could still feel the sweat on her brow from that stunt.

Luke gave a huff, but dropped it. They waited in awkward silence for another minute.

“Oh,” Matt said. “Almost forgot.”

He reached into his jacket and messed around with something on his shoulder. Then somehow pulled Colleen’s katana out from underneath and tossed it to her.

“How were you even hiding that?”

“Concealed weaponry was one of the first lessons I learned.”

Colleen looked at him. Kept looking at him as she slung the sword over her shoulder.

The elevator went ding and the doors opened.

The apartments up here were pretty spaced out. This wasn’t exactly the penthouse, but Colleen imagined that these apartments would still run you a pretty penny. And she couldn’t even see inside them.

Matt stopped in front of a door. 30207. He turned back towards Colleen and Luke and pointed through the wall.

‘Burbank,’ he mouthed. Then he pointed a little farther to the side. ‘Kara. Through door.’ He mimed opening a door.

Luke nodded. Colleen saw him and nodded as well. He then motioned to Luke and stepped away from the door.

Alright, this was it then. Better act fast.

Luke kicked the door in.

The apartment plan was very open, with the foyer, living room, and kitchen bleeding into the same shape. Kitchen on the left, with a countertop on the far wall and an island in front of it. And next to the island was a big black spot floating in the middle of the air. In the middle was a small hallway with two doors down it. Living room on the right, with a green sofa and coffee table facing a 75 inch plasma. Burbank was lounging on the couch and jumped at the noise.

Colleen rushed him, vaulted over the back of the couch and hit his chin with roundhouse. His head went through the coffee table. Matt rolled to the hallway, popped one of the doors open and threw his walking stick in then closed the door again. Burbank was getting to his feet. Luke slipped in behind him, got his arms under his pits and threw him to the ground. Gave his head another kick while he was down.

Burbank went limp. The three of them, breathing a little, looked at each other.

“Was that it?” Luke asked. “We good?”

“That went better than expected,” Colleen said.

* * *

Jessica’s eyes left Kara. There was a commotion outside.

“What the-” Kara turned back towards the door, just in time for a tiny, dark object to fly through and smack her in the head.

Kara hit the ground. And didn’t get back up.

“Christ.”

A couple more loud sounds from outside. Then the door opened.

“Jess?” Luke asked.

For the first time in a while, Jessica felt a flood of relief wash over her. “About time you guys showed up.”

Luke was silhouetted against the doorway, so she couldn’t see what his face was doing. For some reason though, she felt like he’d let out a chuckle.

“You sound like hell, you know that?” he said. “Give me a second, let me find the-”

A lightswitch clicked. And a bunch of lights came on overhead, actually lighting up the room. Jess squinted against it.

She was stashed inside a closet. With a lamp positioned above her.

Well, it was the shape and size of a closet, but it wasn’t being used as a closet. Everything had been cleared out, except for the lamp and the chair Jess was tied to.

Instead the walls were filled, edge to edge, floor to ceiling, with papers. Printed out papers. As she looked closer, she recognized the layout. These were printed out threads from wherearetherealheroes.com. She saw threads about her, about Jessica Jones and Kilgrave and Alisa Jones and Trish Walker and IGH. She saw threads about Carl Lucas and Willis Stryker and Seagate Prison and Reva Connors. Saw threads about Daniel Rand and the city of K’un-Lun and Colleen Wing and Harold Meachum and the Hand. And taking up the entire right wall, threads dedicated solely to one figure: The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.

Every aspect of Daredevil’s activities and appearance had been catalogued and compared to dozens and dozens of individuals. Just from a preliminary scan, someone would bring up someone who was trained in martial arts, and disappeared during the blip, and lives near the same areas as his frequent activities, and then that idea would get shot down because his chin was the wrong shape. And someone else would get brought up, and their figure would be wrong. And someone else would get brought up, but they had an alibi during one of Daredevil’s escapades.

Halfway through Matt Murdock was brought up as a joke. Blipped, right figure, right jaw, right location, no contradicting alibis, seen often in court with bruises and cuts. A few people laughed it off and moved on, but the farther the thread went the more Matt came back up. Posters were in disbelief. He’s blind. Medically blind. He couldn’t have faked it, could he? Then someone managed to track down a medical record of a child, Matthew Murdock, blinded by a chemical spill. Said it sounded like a superhero origin story. The entire thread was on board now. There was no other explanation that fit as neatly. Matt Murdock was Daredevil.

“Huh.”

* * *

Colleen tapped her foot impatiently. Then after about 3 seconds she poked her head into the room.

“What’s taking so long?”

Jessica was tied to a chair by steel cabling, which went behind her and latched onto a hook on the wall.

“This knot’s a little,” Luke grunted from where he was kneeled behind Jessica.

“I’m working as fast as I can here,” said Jess.

“There. Got it.”

The cord went slack. Jessica said “Fuck!” and started rubbing where it had been pinching her.

“Alright come on,” Colleen said. “Reinforcements could be here any second.”

“Yeah, let me just,” Jessica took a step forward and stumbled to one knee.

“I gotcha.” Luke pulled her back up and slung her arm over his shoulder. “Alright. Let’s go.”

Colleen and Matt ran, Luke and Jessica walked, out of the apartment. Colleen was already at the elevators mashing the button. She looked back. Luke and Jess were coming.

Matt wasn’t.

He stood, fists clenched, facing back towards the apartment.

“Matt, come on!” she yelled.

He looked back to her. Then turned away. “Go on. I’ll catch up.”

Colleen cursed under her breath and ran back to him. Past Luke and Jessica. She took him by the shoulder and spun him around.

“Matt, we need to go. Now.”

“This is my chance. I can end this.”

“Matt you’re beat to shit and running on empty, I’m not leaving you behind.”

“If I don’t take this opportunity now, it may never come again. I need to do something.”

“You won’t be able to do anything for anyone if you’re dead!”

“There’s only two left, I can handle this.”

He stepped forward. Colleen grabbed him by the back of his jacket.

He slipped out of it. Spun around and swung a fist at Colleen. She ducked it and stepped in and nailed his ribs with an elbow, stepped forward and planted a palm into his chest, stepped forward and had a hand around his throat. His back was to the wall.

“Matt. You’re sloppy. You’re tired. You need to run. Just this once, just run from a fight. I promise you we’ll figure something out, but right now if you go back in there you’re going to die.”

Matt stood, staring at nothing and sputtering. He brought a hand up to break her grip. She slapped it back down.

“Matt!”

A few more quick breaths. “Okay. Okay.”

She let go of his neck. He gave it a quick massage.

There was a burst of air from behind them.

“Alright let’s go!” Matt turned and ran for the elevators. Colleen fell just behind.

There was another burst of air and the crunch of drywall. Colleen looked back. Shappe was pulling himself out of a hole he’d torn down into someone else’s apartment.

“We’re not gonna hold this elevator forever,” Jess called out. Despite what she was saying Luke kept his hand against the side.

The second Matt and Colleen were through, he drew his hand back and started mashing the close door button. Shappe shook his head clear, spotted the closing elevator, and there was a burst of air.

A massive, man-sized dent appeared in the elevator door. All four of the flinched back. And then after a moment the elevator started going down.

They all stood there, staring at the dent, heavy breaths. Letting the adrenaline fall off and relax.

“Guys,” Jessica said. “I don’t mean to put you out anymore. But I could really use something to eat.”


End file.
